Why Is Cultural Fit a Key Element to Offshoring Success?
Outsourcing to an offshore global team can be a smart decision for many businesses, offering access to a diverse talent pool whilst enjoying the value of efficiently investing resources. Though skills and experience are naturally essential when recruiting, cultural fit can also play a significant role in retaining great talent and achieving offshoring success.
What is cultural fit?
Cultural fit refers to the degree to which an individual’s attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviours are consistent with the culture, values, and norms of an organisation or community. Cultural fit becomes even more critical with an offshore global team as the differences in language, customs, and work practices may be significant.
Ensuring cultural fit does not mean that everyone is just a “clone” of the company with no room for diversity. Cultural fit is not based on the person’s personal attributes (gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, for example). Working with an offshore service provider becomes even more productive and more manageable by pursuing cultural fit and diversity together.
Whilst you want to make sure that the staff’s values are aligned to your company’s, you must also consider if your organisation’s value system is aligned with what’s important for the employee as well.
Why does cultural fit matter?
Cultural fit strengthens retention
Cultural fit helps you to attract and retain the skilled talent that you need. They tend to have more positive relationships with their colleagues, with their managers, and with the company as a whole. They are also most likely to endorse your company to others, which can lead to increased employee referrals and reduced recruiting costs and turnover disruptions.
Cultural fit encourages engagement
Despite the distance, maintaining cultural fit will further strengthen the working relationship between you and the remote team. If the offshore staff has a good cultural fit with your company, they are more committed to perform their tasks, more motivated to produce better output, and more satisfied at work.
Cultural fit opens up opportunities for innovation
A good cultural fit will enable the offshore team to identify more strongly with your company. This allows a more collaborative space and a higher level of acceptance to share diverse ideas. Though it’s normal for conflicting opinions and challenges to arise, having similar values can keep everyone aligned towards a common goal.
How to assess cultural fit with offshore staff?
Checking for cultural fit is a continuous process in coordination with the offshore solutions provider.
When recruiting members for an offshore team, it’s important to determine how the candidate feels about your company culture and values. Keep an eye out also for those who can quickly adapt to changes and remain productive as they adjust to new cultural values.
A thorough onboarding process with the offshore staffing service will help you to identify any potential cultural barriers that need to be addressed to ensure a successful collaboration.
As you work with your remote team, you can maintain cultural fit by conducting focus group discussions or feedback surveys to assess whether the team and your company are still aligned. Team-building activities and recognition programs will help cultivate a positive workplace and improve retention. Maintain regular communications with your offshore staff to strengthen their sense of belonging.
Foster cultural fit with offshore staffing solutions
AS White Global has been at the forefront in finding the best talent to support businesses in Australia, New Zealand, US, and the UK. We attract and retain high-quality and experienced talent from Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines for any professional role in your company.
We recognise the significant value of cultural fit when we build dedicated offshore teams for our client partners. This has led them to reap the benefits of offshoring success: enabling them to efficiently invest their resources, gaining access to highly skilled talent, and further boosting business expansion.
For enquiries on how we can support your business with offshore staffing solutions, contact us for a free consultation.
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