Culture Fit Remote Teams : Things to Consider When Hiring Top Tech and Indian Digital Talents

Building and managing a culturally diversified remote team is now a crucial skill for leaders. It’s considered the most essential attribute, especially since digital agencies are no longer restricted to hiring talents in their native location or even from the same country. An important aspect of remote hiring is finding culture fit talents who can align themselves with the company culture and business goals. 

Culture plays a big role when building a remote or hybrid team. It creates an identity for the organization, promotes healthy competition, and sets the tone for communication and respect. It also unites team members from diverse backgrounds and ensures cross-cultural sensitivity across all levels. 

While such talents bring a different viewpoint to the virtual workspace, creating a work environment that’s respectful and inclusive can sometimes be tricky.

Digital agencies are incorporating processes and stages of screening in their hiring and onboarding process for seamless integration. Hiring managers often relate a culture fit to someone with whom they can hang out and speak freely. This mistake leads to building a team with homogenous personalities where everybody thinks and speaks alike.

The above misconceptions are found very common in the hiring process, and they lead to building a team that lacks innovation. Hence, it is important for digital agencies to understand its meaning before hiring for culture fit. In this blog, we will talk about the things you should know while building a culturally fit team in India and how Uplers is helping digital agencies hire culturally fit talents.

Uplers is Helping Digital Agencies Hire Deeply-vetted Indian Talents Who Are Remote-ready and Culturally Adaptive 

A big step towards building a culturally fit team is to stay aware of the hiring challenges that come with uniting remote team members from different backgrounds. Here are a few things about the Indian workspace culture you should know about while hiring for a culture fit remote team:

Context of communication

A typical Indian team communicates using several jargon called ‘Indianisms’ which may not resonate with a global agency. However, our certified talents know Indian jargons and yours too, as we ensure that their communication is of global-standards.

Contextual differences

High-context and low-context define the communication styles in the West and the East. In a low-context environment, such as the United States and Germany, there are more direct questions and answers to ensure clarity on any topic. However, the Indian work culture is very high-context, which means non-verbal cues, less intimidating language, and a lack of direct criticism. They also prefer discussing their opinions on a one-to-one basis to avoid creating a hostile atmosphere in the public domain. 

We help Indian talents to adapt to these changes as per their employer, so they can build stronger relationships at work and avoid misunderstandings. We go the extra mile to make sure there are no gaps between the talent and the digital agency, as part of our commitment towards perfect matchmaking.

Cultural values

Individualism, heavily followed in the West, emphasizes ownership and accountability of each employee and motivates them to outperform their peers. This concept promotes the personal growth of every professional to build a competitive environment. In contrast, in India, the cultural values in the workplace promote collectivism, wherein employees collaborate to reach business goals, and the focus is on building strong camaraderie within the group. In such an environment, success is a measure of the entire organization’s performance, and not just an individual’s.

It must be noted that despite the differences between the two cultures, both of them help develop a productive workforce and win the competition in today’s dynamic market.

Pragmatism vs Innovation

Pragmatism in a workplace means getting results through perfect planning and execution, with no margins for error. While the world relies on pragmatism and its incredible impact, Indians are known for being innovative and getting the best results with the resources at their disposal. This innovation-based mindset has helped the country scale new heights, and it is what digital agencies expect from such a massive talent-rich region – new ideas that propel success.

How Uplers Identifies Culture Fit Talents For Digital Agencies

A professional fit is fairly easy to find by evaluating their skills and experience, and you can find several such talents in India. However, a cultural fit in the workplace is someone who resonates with your organization’s values and aligns with the goals and vision. To help global employers find their professional and cultural fit, Uplers relies on its stringent vetting process.

Uplers’ 5-step deep vetting process efficiently identifies the ideal fit for your organization. We vet talents for their behavioral attributes that align to the client’s organizational values and effective cross-cultural communications.

Our talents possess strong communication skills, valuable for building professional relationships and spearheading client-sided conversations. They are also technically-proficient, adaptable to company culture, and capable of thriving in a fast-paced environment that demands quick decision-making and extensive collaboration. 

With our effective hiring process and detailed talent assessment techniques, we bridge the gaps in your talent acquisition strategy  and find the culture fit talents aligned with your agency’s values.

Managing Culture Fit Remote Indian Talents Post-onboarding 

Your responsibilities while building a culturally fit team do not end with the hiring process. Here are a few things digital agencies should do post-hiring to ensure a culturally-aligned workforce: 

Ensure strong communication

Once you have hired your ideal candidate, keep checking on them about how they find the cultural values in the workplace and if they are facing any challenges. Keep an empathetic attitude and motivate the new hire to speak up and share any experience, positive or negative, that they encounter in their initial days. A channel of free-flowing communication will help build trust and verify if the candidate fits well into the organization.

At Uplers, we assign a Talent Success Coach (TSC) to the talent and an Account Manager (AM) to the client. Since a digital agency has a very high-pressure and fast-paced work environment, the TSCs and AMs help both parties establish strong communication and understanding. This goes a long way in helping the talent adapt to the agency’s expectations and help them reach their business goals.

Train the staff

It is essential to train your employees to align with the company culture and develop a habit of sticking with it. Simply propagating the values on social media is not enough, you must walk the talk. Ask the team managers to uphold the company’s value system in every step of the operation. This will help in inculcating the cultural values in the workplace so the entire organization can resonate together. 

Welcome opinions and act on them

If an employee is facing any issue while adapting to the company culture or understanding them, hear them out and address them quickly. Employees sharing their inhibitions and challenges regarding the culture will only build a stronger team and help you grow as an employer. You can also consider taking seminars to better propagate the culture points and remove any misunderstandings.

A culturally strong team can face any troubling tides and work efficiently like a sports team. If you are facing any issues while hiring for a culture fit remote Indian team, connect with us, and we will help you.

Finding it challenging to establish a connection with your remote Indian employees? 

Do you know diverse team outperforms homogeneous team by 35% and for that and 92% of remote talent link collaborative cultures to higher company success 

Our cultural guide has helped many companies bridge the cultural gap between India and the West, how? 

• Implementing effective communication strategies to bridge this gap
• Developing trust with your Indian remote employees

Mastering the art of overcoming cross-cultural barriers in the workplace for your remote Indian team members.