The Role of HR in Building a Positive Company Culture

According to Great Place to Work’s Strategic Advisor Julian Lute, company culture is the sum of the formal and informal systems, behaviors, and values that shape your organization’s personality.

While company perks and benefits like free food, office activities, and employee recognition events express an organization’s culture, they don’t create or define it. Company culture goes beyond what one does within the organization and instead focuses on how they do it.

Comprised of your shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms, your company culture influences how employees, management, and other stakeholders perceive and engage with your organization. It manifests in leadership behaviors, communication styles, internal messaging, and corporate celebrations.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a solid and positive organizational culture brings favorable results:



• Your employees know how top management wants them to respond to any situation,
• They believe the expected response is the proper one, and
• They know they will be rewarded for demonstrating the organization's values.

What is Your Company’s Culture?

The SHRM explains that, at the deepest level, an organization’s unique culture is rooted in values drawn from assumptions about:

• Human Nature
• What does your organization believe to be true about human nature?
• How should employees, customers, and suppliers interact?
• How should they be managed?

• The Company’s Relationship to Its Environment
• How does your organization define its business and its constituencies?
• What are its mission, vision, and core values?

• Appropriate Emotions
• Which emotions should the people in the organization be encouraged to express?
• Which ones should they suppress?

• Measure of Effectiveness
• What is your organization’s definition of success?
• How does it determine and measure success?
• What metrics does it use to show whether or not the company and its individual components are doing well?

The answers to these questions show you the kind of culture your team has.

All organizations have a distinct culture, and every leader wants it to be positive. Unfortunately, company cultures aren’t automatically uplifting and healthy. Creating and managing a positive culture takes honest assessment, strategic planning, focused efforts, and successful implementation. And when left unguided or unstructured, your company culture may do more harm than good.

Read More: How to Build a Strong Company Culture in a Healthcare Organization 

How is Culture Impacted by the Human Resources Department?

Your HR team is central to shaping, maintaining, and influencing a positive and healthy organizational culture. They do this by aligning their practices and initiatives with your values and fostering an environment where employees are motivated, engaged, and encouraged to exhibit behaviors consistent with the desired culture.

Here are five different areas your HR department can work in to impact your company culture:

1. Recruitment and Talent Acquisition

While HR plays a crucial role in selecting candidates who fit your company’s culture and values during the hiring process, they do much more than that during the recruitment and talent acquisition stage. 

According to The Ultimate Guide to Onboarding Employees by Nexus HR, company culture manifests itself even before an employee joins your company. Your job listing, interviews, offer letter, and conversations all communicate what your company is about and how you do things. 

An experienced and highly professional HR team ensures that their words, actions, and processes reflect your company culture. By doing so, they attract talent who not only qualify for open positions but also have values that align with your company’s goals and vision.

Read More: The Ultimate Guide to Onboarding Employees 

2. Employee Relations and Growth

HR shapes your company culture by providing training, development, and communication initiatives that reinforce your values and encourage employee engagement. By carefully designing programs that align employees with the company's culture, HR ensures that the team understands and embodies company values.

How your HR department handles sensitive matters like workplace conflicts, diversity, equity, inclusivity, performance evaluations, religious accommodations, and employee rights reflects and fosters your company culture. HR can promote respectful interactions, address issues fairly, and establish just policies. By doing so, they uphold and reinforce your organization’s values.

Read More: 5 Key Traits of a Good Manager (According to the People They Manage)

3. Leadership Development and Change Management

HR can play a crucial role in identifying and nurturing leadership qualities consistent with the culture, ensuring your company has strong leaders who embody and champion its values and principles.

Periods of change can be difficult, but your HR department can help facilitate smooth transitions during these times. For example, they can set up feedback mechanisms to know how employees feel and what they think about the change. HR sees that the organization addresses employee questions and concerns and makes the necessary adjustments to maintain cultural alignment. When they do this, they help ensure that the culture remains a guiding force within the organization even as it evolves to meet new challenges and goals.

Read More: What is a Stay Interview? And How Do I Conduct One? 

Cultivate a Company Culture That Makes People Want to Stay

Organizational culture is never static; it evolves as the organization grows, faces new challenges, or undergoes leadership changes. HR doesn’t just deal with building a healthy and positive company culture; they also face the challenge of maintaining it over the years and adjusting it when necessary.

Needless to say, your organization needs a strong HR team that understands the company culture, aligns with it, and provides you with the support necessary to cultivate it. If you don’t have a team big enough to take on these responsibilities (or if you don’t have an HR department at all), Nexus HR is ready to fill in the gaps and offer exceptional remote HR support.

Whether you need help with legal compliance, staff supervision, employee discipline, performance improvement planning, or policy implementation, our international team of HR specialists can help you shape, maintain, and adjust your company culture to foster employee satisfaction, achieve business goals, and sustain long-term success.