There was a role that was always open.

On paper, it looked like a great job. Entry-level, well-paid, not technically complex. It should have been a win: for the organization and for the people hired into it.

In reality, it quietly burned through good people.

The pattern was always the same: someone would be hired, onboarded, trained. They would tread water for a while, and sometimes even do well. Then expectations would slip. The work would pile up. Pressure would increase. Eventually, the hire would be labeled “not meeting expectations,” and the cycle would begin again.

From the outside, it looked like a culture fit issue.

From the inside, it was something else entirely.

A Job That Was Harder Than It Looked

This wasn’t a hard job because it was complicated.

It was hard because it was relentless.

The workload was heavy and unforgiving. Falling behind, even briefly, made it nearly impossible to catch up. One bad week could create months of cleanup. The work fed directly into someone else’s responsibilities, so mistakes upstream created real consequences downstream.

People hired into the role weren’t careless or unmotivated. They wanted to succeed. They worked hard. But success required a very specific tolerance for pressure, pace, and recovery; one that wasn’t named explicitly and wasn’t obvious during hiring.

And that’s where the trouble started.

When success depends on unspoken rules, effort starts to feel like failure.

The Manager Wasn’t the Villain — She Was Protecting the System

The manager had done the job herself. She knew exactly how fragile the workflow was, and that if things went off the rails, the work would land back on her desk.

She wanted to be hands-off.

But the system wouldn’t let her be.

The work required close scrutiny to prevent downstream chaos. That scrutiny slowly eroded autonomy.

And as hires missed expectations, sometimes small ones, the box got narrower:

More checking
More feedback
Less room to move

Each attempt to “correct” performance reduced independence, until the job no longer resembled what had been posted or promised.

The manager was asked what she wanted in the role. She designed the job based on what she needed to protect the workflow, but without leadership guidance, challenge, or connection to a broader people strategy.

And isolation is where roles start to fail quietly.

Leadership Context Matters — Especially When Resources Are Thin

Now imagine you’re the leader.

No HR manager
No middle layer
You’re the hiring manager, the decision-maker, and the safety net

You may have made the direct hire, but did you actually have time to think about who you truly needed? How much training they’d require? What kind of person would thrive, not just survive?

You’re juggling financial constraints, keeping work coming in the door, and making sure the organization stays afloat. This role doesn’t feel strategic, it feels operational, necessary, urgent.

So you do what many leaders in small or early-stage organizations do: you lean toward the easy hire.

The person you know
The referral you trust
The candidate who seems capable enough to “figure it out”

Not because you’re careless — but because you’re conserving decision energy in a stretched system.

The problem is:

Hiring in survival mode rarely leaves room for intentional role design.

The Invisible Labor of “Doing Hiring Right”

Here’s the part that often gets missed:

This wasn’t a rushed or lazy hiring process.

The job description was thoughtfully developed, just without HR until the final stages. HR, the manager, and the team spent months reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, onboarding, and training.

Real time.
Real care.
Real investment.

At six months, the first performance review landed: meets expectations.

Relief all around. The process worked. The hire worked.

And then — within weeks — HR was reviewing a request for a Performance Improvement Plan.

What happened?

Nothing new happened.
The system ran out of slack.

Early on, there was more tolerance, more oversight, more grace for learning. The workload hadn’t changed, but expectations had.

As the manager stepped back, risk increased. As risk increased, scrutiny returned.

The employee didn’t suddenly decline.
The role simply revealed its true shape.

It only worked when it was tightly held.

Performance plans don’t fix unclear jobs. They document the fallout.

Why Employees Are Usually Surprised

This is the part that’s hardest to watch, and most familiar to HR.

The employee is told they’re meeting expectations. They’re trying; often over-trying. Feedback is given in pieces, tied to moments, not systems.

No one names the truth: success requires fitting a very narrow mold.

So when HR finally gets the call to “deal with a problem employee,” it’s rarely a shock to leadership, but almost always a shock to the employee.

Employees don’t usually ignore feedback.
They adapt to the rules they think they’re playing by.

Where “Culture Fit” Quietly Takes the Blame

This is where culture fit enters the story; not as a strategy, but as a shorthand.

It becomes easier to say “they didn’t fit” than to say:

“We built a role no one could succeed in without becoming someone else.”

Culture fit becomes the explanation when clarity is missing.
It shifts responsibility from systems to individuals.
It hides:

Late HR involvement
Isolated role design
Unshared leadership decisions
Unnamed constraints

Without decision clarity, culture fit is just vibes.

Purpose-Driven Hiring Requires Real Decisions

If hiring is an expression of purpose, then roles must be designed with honesty — about pace, pressure, support, and limits.

That means asking harder questions before the job is posted:

Is this role meant to be sustainable long-term?
What kind of person actually thrives here?
How much training and oversight are we prepared to provide?
Are we paying well to compensate for difficulty — or to avoid redesigning the work?

It also means recognizing that HR can’t solve these issues downstream.
We prevent them by helping leaders slow down before the hire, when decisions still have room to change.

A Final Reflection

If a role keeps turning over, it’s trying to tell you something.

If an employee is surprised they’re failing, the system failed first.

And if “culture fit” is the explanation you keep returning to, it might be time to ask whether the real issue is a lack of alignment, or a lack of decision clarity.

Purpose shows up in the choices we make before people are hired.
Everything after that is just consequence.

If this story feels familiar, you’re not alone.

I help leaders bring clarity to the roles, systems, and decisions that shape their teams.

When you’re ready to explore what that could look like for you, I’m here.

Purpose & Hiring: Why “Culture Fit” Fails Without Decision Clarity