Open to Debate: Is 'Culture' HR's Job? 👍or👎
Adam Horne
I Help People Teams & Founders Design Company Culture That's Tangible & Transparent | Open Org 🖤
Welcome to the latest edition of our healthily divisive newsletter!, where we take a new topic each week and throw it out to the HR, People & Culture community for some constructive disagreement, insightful conflict and cathartic keyboard smashing...
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Is 'Culture' HR's Job? 👍or👎
💬 People Team: "Culture shouldn't be in our job title! We're not the only ones responsible for this!"
Heard this argument before? I have...
It's definitely something that's split opinion in the HR & People world too.
The Problem ☢️
Folks who argue this point suggest that by having this in their title, a few things happen:
1️⃣ 'Culture' gets relegated to being something one person or team is responsible for. Others wash their hands of it.
2️⃣ When culture turns sour, who gets the blame?... the person with culture in their title of course!
3️⃣ Culture isn't taken seriously. It's more like a 'project' or list of responsibilities in a job description (e.g. arranging socials, parties, etc)
This happens, a lot. And there'll be plenty out there who have felt this. BUT...
🧠 My View
Culture in a job title isn't the root cause of your problem. ❌
Personally, I like it. Because I'm of the school of thought that yes, everyone is accountable to nurturing, living & breathing culture across the business. But if you also subscribe to the idea that culture is something that can and should be designed intentionally, then it would suggest to me that someone needs to at least lead on that work; as the designer, the architect, the facilitator of change & improvement in your org.
Yes at times more will be involved in that work, but not all the time.
For me, it's the common definition & view of 'culture' in the org that impacts this first & foremost.
Those that treat culture as something that can be tangible, designed, operationalised should have someone leading on that work intentionally. That doesn't mean they are the ones responsible for everything. It means they are the ones responsible for:
👉 Managing effective feedback loops; so you have an early warning system in place for when culture cracks start to appear
👉 Knowing when change is needed, who needs to be involved, and what needs doing.
👉 Orchestrating & facilitating that change, and carefully managing it to understand effectiveness.
That doesn't mean that other people in the business shouldn't be expected to contribute, co-create, and live by what's been designed & built.
It's everyone's collective responsibility to contribute to keeping culture healthy, but someone needs to be designing & managing this thing. That for me is where people as product teams come in.
Bottom Line:
As a people team, it is your job to maximise the human potential of your company Agree?
The way you do that is ensuring there’s an environment for teams to do their best work Agree?
For me, the best way to frame that is managing your culture like a product
Managing it = make it tangible, build feedback loops, put everyone in charge of it.
What do you think? 👇
P.s. if you're craving more connection with other passionate HR, People & Culture folks, you might like our Slack Community over at Open Org. Check it out, and apply here! 🚀
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P.P.S - If this did get you nodding along, we're running a culture design cohort built on these principles in Feb. Check it out here
I’ve never liked the move to ‘people and culture’. Culture is driven by leadership and is a team effort, HR has a massive influence, naturally, but people leaders have a bigger one day to day in my opinion. I like the idea of culture being a key part of all leaders (and employees) job descriptions.
I help people live their best work lives
2wI think most of the comments cover the points that I wanted to make already: Culture is everyone's job to uphold, maintain, and live within an org as it pertains to how work is done. HR (which I think of more as the admin side) or People/Culture is there to define it, foster it, measure it, improve on it, taking cues from what is happening organically, as well as what leadership wants to happen. Yes, culture will happen organically whether someone is owning it or not, but organizations that are not realizing the power to motivate, innovate, and inspire people to be more productive by putting deliberate effort behind their culture are leaving money on the table AND risking losing money (read: people) by doing so.
A few years ago, I ran across this statement, I believe on LinkedIn, to the effect of “HR is the conscience of culture and the CEO and Business Leaders own culture, which drives engagement.” Regretfully, when I wrote this down, I didn’t write down the author. To me, this sums it up. As far as job titles go, I think it depends on the organization and their needs and culture.
Strategic People Operations Leader | Growth Obsessed, People Focused | Scaling Startups with Smarter Systems
3wI believe People/HR are responsible for partnering with leadership to ensure cultures don’t just “happen” but are intentionally curated. This means working with leaders and managers in every department to make sure their environment is healthy and thriving—because let’s be honest, one-size-fits-all never works. It’s also the perfect space to debate culture add vs. culture fit (spoiler: I’m team culture add). People/HR share accountability with executive leadership to make sure the company’s values, mission, and vision are more than just wall art, they should actually mean something and bring people together around shared beliefs. That said, I don’t think any company really has one culture. If it does, you’ve probably stepped into a “we’re a family” vibe, which sounds nice but can stifle individuality. Instead, organizations thrive when they balance unique individual contributions with shared goals. That’s what drives ingenuity and creates the kind of diversity companies need to keep growing.
Fractional HR Consultant||Career Coach|
1moAdam, you spoke to the core of the matter. HR cannot devolve itself from Culture. HR gatekeeps and leads in talent acquisition for organizations. Therefore its important so ensure every talent is align to the organization's culture. Yes all others play a part( especially leadership at all levels) to ensure that culture is upheld. Like you said, the people team ensures human potential is maximized. Getting one person or a team to be responsible is to ensure accountability and not trivialize culture issues. I love the idea of managing culture as a product.