Company culture – is this just Human Resources’ responsibility?

Over the years we have seen titles change in all verticals of an organisation, as employers have reacted to the market and the ever-evolving workplace. I am sure we all remember when you would see a job advertisement titled – ‘Director of First Impressions’ and although it was appealing for some, it didn’t reflect the value of the position and its contribution.

Within human resources, there have been several different titles from (yes this is going to show my age) ‘Personnel’ that moved to ‘Human Resources’ to ‘People and Culture’ and I am sure there will be further evolution as we start to hear about ‘People & Performance. But with the change to having the word ‘culture’ added to the title, it seems that in some organisations, the full responsibility for building, developing, and managing culture has been put on the shoulders of the brave HR souls who take on the challenge.

Recently, people2people Brisbane had an in person forum, where we had an amazing guest speaker Michelle Holland, who shared her wisdom on culture and ‘quiet quitting,’ which truly resonated with me. Company or business culture is not the responsibility of just one person, but every single person within the organisation, has some accountability for adding to or detracting from, the culture.

Yes, HR takes on the responsibility to help drive culture, but they can only do their best to provide an environment where all employees can help develop and manage it. Culture is the actions and responsibilities of the entire organisation across all levels within the organisation and often it is influenced from the top down. There is always opportunity to help build it from the bottom up.

When you head to google and type in the ‘what is the definition of company culture’ you will receive a diverse range of reference points, but in short, ‘company culture is defined as a shared set of values, goals, attitudes and practices that make up an organisation’.



So, to build your culture, you need to have transparency in terms of communication, values and goals. This includes everyone on the journey and making them accountable for building the culture. This will help create the right environment, which ultimately will build a successful business.