Dan Hanyzewski, Managing Partner, West Shore Partners LLC

How often have you heard it said, “He or she had the greatest credentials and experience and were perfect for the job,” only to be miserably disappointed that they were a total failure in the environment they were hired into. I would wager to say this happens more than we care to discuss. Most often it relates to the question posed regarding the cultural fit.

Zappos’ practice of asking job candidates to rank their weirdness on a scale of one to 10 is because one of Zappos’ core values is “create fun and a little weirdness.”

Nike utilizes “Competency Based Behavior “assessments because the culture calls for collaboration within a highly complex matrixed environment that tends to be more passive aggressive than a command and control environment.

When you think about the world’s most dominant brands, Starbucks, Google, Apple, and McDonald’s, to name some of my favorites, you have to ask yourself how they achieved this dominance. Most often, when you distill it all down, it points directly to innovation and flawless implementation spawned from an almost cult-like connection to their culture.

Cultural fit from one perspective might be a direct correlation between the employee’s personal value system and the company’s values. It may seem obvious but often goes undetected through the interview process and may not manifest itself until the prospective employee is actually trying to perform in the environment. Once it is revealed that there is disconnect the chances of success become questionable and often times end in a very negative result. This result has enormous financial impact. If you consider the loss of productivity , the negative impact on morale, the additional resources required to compensate, and the overall expenditure of time in acquiring and then ultimately replacing the employee, conservative estimates are as much as 40 times the base earnings of that individual and can be much more than this. In today’s market that might even be a conservative number when you consider that the supply chain for certain disciplines is quite diminished and you really can’t afford to make a wrong decision.

The consequences for making a wrong decision cannot only have financial impact but they can do enormous public relations damage and result in an organization making great concessions to its existing policies.

A recent example of this would be the wrongful termination case involving Dawnmarie Souza, who claimed she was unlawfully fired from her job at an ambulance company in December 2009 and denied union representation. She was terminated after posting negative comments about her supervisor on her Facebook page.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against the American Medical Response of Connecticut in October 2010. The board contended that Souza was “engaged in concerted activities with other employees” when she criticized and complained about her supervisor on Facebook.

As reported by Philadelphia Employment Law News, the company agreed to modify its “overly broad rules” in the employee handbook about how employees can communicate online and talk about their work conditions with their coworkers. AMR also consented to not punishing their employees for asking for union representation.

Dawnmarie Souza’s case raised the controversial question of whether employers have the right to discipline their employees for any posts or comments written on social-networking sites.

AMR had initially argued that Souza’s Facebook comments were not protected activity on the Internet, but the NLRB responded that firing Souza from her job actually violated the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRA permits workers to discuss the conditions and terms of their job with coworkers and other people.

Then there is the speculation that is generated in headlines like the following that have taken place in the last few years:

Oracle’s President Replaces Resigned CFO

Safra Catz, Oracle’s president and former CFO has replaced CFO Jeff Epstein who resigned after three years. No reason was given for Epstein’s departure, and Oracle said Catz will remain as president. Two previous CFOs each lasted less than a year. Observers see the move putting Catz and former HP CEO Mark Hurd in line to become Oracle’s CEO.

MySpace CEO is out after less than a year

Van Natta’s resignation is effective immediately. He will be replaced by Mike Jones, chief operating officer, and Jason Hirschhorn, chief product officer, who are being promoted to serve as co-presidents, News Corp. said in a statement.

Seventh Generation: Hollender supports new CEO, layoffs won’t slow mission

John Replogle joined Seventh Generation in March as only the third Chief Executive Officer in the company’s 23-year history. He is also the third CEO in just the past year and a half. He took over for Chuck Maniscalco, who joined the company in 2009 after founder Jeffrey Hollender stepped down as CEO. Hollender continued to work on the company’s sustainability initiatives during that transition, which he described as “a turbulent and difficult period for the company.”

“Chuck Maniscalco resigned less than a year and a half into his tenure,” Hollender said. “That alone is disruptive. I was CEO for almost two decades. Because these transitions are challenging, the company spent a lot of time and resources on it, hoping it would last more than a year and a half.”

It is quite easy to see how these changes can affect both brand equity and shareholder value, and they almost always do in these cases.

To say that making sure you have the right cultural fit is important is probably an understatement. Can you always be certain? Not likely. But you can do quite a bit to mitigate your exposure. You will probably never hire five out of five, as they say in the talent acquisition profession, but there are a number of things like behavioral interviews, 360 reviews, and complete and utter honesty with the candidate and yourself about the real culture within your company.

Oftentimes the outbound perception of one’s brand is not necessarily in sync with the realities of the culture that drives the company. To do your best in assessing the right fit it is important to know the perception of that fit.

Phil Knight, founder of a sports company, once said, “Sports is like rock ‘n’ roll. Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions.”

That might give you just a little insight into what the right fit for his company might be.

Dan Hanyzewski is Managing Partner of West Shore Partners LLC / Redmitten.com, a niche consulting firm focused on delivering high-end solutions to a range of Human Resources, Procurement, Operational, and Finance clients. He is currently engaged by  Sunrise Systems as a principal to aggressively grow that firm and Kelly Services (NASDAQ: KELYA, KELYB) to assist Kelly’s Outsourcing and Consulting Group build out additional capabilities in employment branding, recruitment strategy, and contingent workforce management.