Stop hiring on skill and firing on fit; here’s how
The issue
Old habits die hard.  A longstanding mantra among recruitment observers is that companies hire on skill and fire on fit.  They are right, companies still do this and it still hasn’t worked out.
Every year a large proportion of workers become disengaged and eventually either kick open the door or are pushed out.  They become disengaged not because they lack skills for the job but because they don’t fit in the company or in their work unit.  Fit is one of the three dominant predictors of performance in most jobs. 
Only 11% of departing employees leave because they don’t have the skills to do the job. Far more important – accounting for 81% of departures – are factors relating to ability to accept feedback, manage emotions, engender motivation and control temperament at work. 
Among twenty-somethings, nearly a third of those who leave their jobs do so because of feelings of alienation.  Work can be a lonely place if you don’t fit.
Exit interviews show that people leave their boss not their job.  This might be literally true in many cases, but my suspicion – supported by people I know who do exit interviews for a living – is that leaving one’s boss is the short form of “I don’t fit with these people, with their values, with their culture.”
Getting fit wrong is nearly commonplace.  Getting skills wrong is rare.
This much is known.  And yet… many hiring decisions are made, still, on skill not on fit.  Job posts emphasize skill sets, experiences gained, technical capabilities acquired. 
When other “fit”-like factors are mentioned, we read a wish list of “everything please”: candidates must be highly entrepreneurial, team players, great communicators, decisive leaders, able to cope with ambiguity, create innovatively, think out-of-the-box; and be personable, approachable, open, a respecter of others, tenacious with targets…
… and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.
Hiring on skill and then firing on fit is not the smart solution.
What matters
The smart solution has been articulated many times.  One example appears in the consensus best business book of the 1990s, Jim Collins’ Good to Great, which concluded that the first step taken by great companies and great leaders is to get the right people on the bus.  Not get the best people on the bus, but get the right people on the bus.  The “right” people fit the job and the company; they are not necessarily the “best” people.  Job and person have to match; people have to fit in an organization. 
Instituting a policy of “get the right people” not the best people, of insisting on fit not skill, of building a culture that engages not excludes, won’t come easy.  Old habits die hard.  But it’s the smart thing to do.
 
What to do
Measure fit.  Measure fit for both the candidate (what is their ideal work environment?) and for the job (what is the actual work environment?).  Tell the truth.  Everyone wins when this happens.
This will require not doing some things.  It will require de-emphasizing skill (for most jobs), or at least not letting it the sole dominant factor.  It will require openness to candidates who, using traditional approaches, would be screened out.  It will require describing the job and the company with candor; to do that, use validated psychometric instruments, not your PR department. 
Have the courage to face resistance.  Some will feel that such an approach removes decision-making from the company’s leaders (it doesn’t); or that fit can’t be measured accurately (it can); or that fit and other “soft skills” don’t really matter (they do).
Focus on fit.  Or face the frequent need to fire don’t-fit hires.