4 Lessons from

Person-Environment Fit Research

What is Person-Environment Fit?

Person–Environment Fit (PE fit) is defined as the degree to which individual and environmental characteristics match.  Person characteristics may include an individual’s biological or psychological needs, values, goals, abilities, or personality.

Environmental characteristics could include intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, demands of a job or role, cultural values, or characteristics of other individuals and collectives in the person's social environment. 

Due to its important implications in the workplace, person–environment fit has maintained a prominent position in Industrial and Organizational psychology and related fields. 

4 Types of Fit

Person-Job Fit (PJ Fit)fit between an individual’s cultural values and those that are required to do the actual job

Person-Organization Fit (PO Fit)fit between an individual’s cultural values and those of the entire organization

Person-Group Fit (PG Fit)fit between an individual’s cultural values and those of their specific work group

Person-Supervisor Fit (PS Fit)fit between an individual’s cultural values and those of their manager

Lesson 1: Person-Job Fit

Person–Job Fit is strongly correlated with: job satisfaction (.56), with organizational commitment (.47), and with intent to quit (-.46)

Lesson: If you want someone to be satisfied with their job, committed to the organization and not leave, then they need to be a good cultural fit with the job requirements

Lesson 2: Person-Organization Fit

Person-Organization Fit is strongly correlated with job satisfaction (.44) and organizational commitment (.51), and more moderately with intent to quit (−.35)

Lesson: It’s important for an employee to be a good cultural fit with the company in order to be satisfied with the job and committed to the organization

Lesson 3: Person-Group Fit

Person-Group Fit is correlated with: job satisfaction (.31), organizational commitment (.19) and intent to quit (-.22)

Lesson: When a person (co-worker or job candidate) is aligned with their team in terms of the way that they're hardwired to communicate, make decisions and share common preferences for rewards their chances of thriving increases exponentially 

Lesson 4: Person-Supervisor Fit

Person-Supervisor Fit had a stronger relationship with job satisfaction (.44) than organizational commitment (.09)

Lesson: To keep someone happy at their job, they need to be a good cultural fit with their boss

What can we learn from these lessons?

•  Culture fit happens at the level of individual to manager, team, company and job.

•  People with higher "fit scores" onboard faster, perform at higher levels, are more engaged and stay with the company longer.

•  From a hiring standpoint, "fit" plays a crucial role in predicting employee success.  

* Statistics used were gathered from Dr. Amy Kristof-Brown’s meta-analysis, Consequences of Individuals’ Fit at Work. The full study can be found here: http://nreilly.asp.radford.edu/kristof-brown%20et%20al.pdf

RoundPegg always compares employee fit to the organization,

team and manager.

Visit us at http://roundpegg.com to learn more and start quantifying fit

today.