Why are companies hiring employees for cultural and skills fit, and how could service unions grow?

"Regardless of general business and economic conditions, many firms are expanding operations and hiring additional employees. For many growing firms, corporate culture can be a key aspect of developing employees into a competitive advantage for the firm. Corporate culture refers to the core values and beliefs that support the mission and business model of the firm and guide employee behavior. Companies such as JetBlue, Ritz-Carlton, and Cypress frequently hire for fit with their corporate cultures. This necessitates recruitment and selection of employees who exhibit the values of the firm. Ritz-Carlton and Cypress use carefully crafted applicant questionnaires to screen for values and behaviors that support the corporate culture. JetBlue uses behavioral-based interview questions derived from its corporate values of safety, integrity, caring, fun, and passion. Southwest Airlines has non-HR employees, including flight attendants, gate agents, and pilots, and even frequent flyer passengers interview applicants to screen for cultural fit as well as strong customer-service orientation. In addition to cultural fit, firms are increasingly hiring for technical knowledge and skills fit to the job. Tech companies such as IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft receive thousands of résumés and job applications each year and continue to look for the best and the brightest when it comes to technical knowledge and skills. For example, IBM is now focusing on a skills-based approach rather than a candidate’s education level and number of academic degrees. Amazon is all about the customer and looks for employees who continue to be “relentlessly curious.” Microsoft continues to raise the talent bar by embracing job applicants who have demonstrated leadership, achieved concrete results, and can prove that they love to learn. Organized labor has faced tumultuous times during the last several decades due to declining union membership, loss of factory jobs, dwindling political clout, and the shifting of jobs outside the United States. With union membership now down to a little more than 10 percent of the U.S. workforce, some wonder if labor unions, who organize as a united front against poor working conditions, still have a place in the country. Mary Kay Henry, international president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is optimistic that unions are capable of resurgence by organizing the growing number of service workers into labor unions. The SEIU is the fastest-growing union in the nation, having jumped to 2 million members from 1.1 million a decade ago. Henry’s goal is to focus on recruiting the country’s millions of low-wage service workers, positions that are primarily filled by the working poor. These workers are disproportionately women, immigrants, and members of minority groups, which have all been traditionally more open to unionization. If these workers are successfully recruited into the SEIU, Henry believes that their wages and benefits would increase in much the same way unions brought factory workers into the middle class in the 1930s. The SEIU believes that the service industry provides a target of opportunity, with the largest expected employment growth through 2026 in low-paid local services: home health aides, 47 percent; personal care aides, 39 percent; food preparation, 17 percent; and janitorial, 10 percent. Many believe that the future of labor lies primarily in the success of recruitment efforts and in enrolling the massive numbers of employees who are in fast-growing, low-wage service jobs. For example, the SEIU was successful recently in unionizing hundreds of workers who provide services to people with disabilities in California, with an eye toward raising standards for their work and increasing hourly wages and benefits. Reversing labor’s decline will be challenging, but the SEIU looks positively toward the future."