Scott McInnesFounder and Director, Inspiring Change · 20+ Years Helping Leaders Build Stronger Cultures, More Human Communication and Embed Lasting Change | Founder | Keynote Speaker | Podcast Host

HR is where Culture Goes to Die

3 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In a brief multi‑speaker dialogue, three participants argue that when organizational culture is placed under the umbrella of Human Resources it loses credibility and impact. Speaker A claims culture becomes weightless and is no longer seen as a lever for business success. Speaker B warns that labeling culture as a “soft” HR issue diminishes its importance, emphasizing that culture is crucial to organizational outcomes. Speaker C expands the point, rejecting the term “soft skill,” noting that people skills are among the hardest to develop, and asserts that culture must be built by the entire organization—not just HR—using the analogy that it takes a village to raise a child.

HR is where culture goes to die because actually, if that's where it ends up, then nobody's taking it seriously. There isn't any weight behind it. And nobody really believes that it's a lever for business success.
It's so easy for culture and all things associated with it to become a HR thing, you know, and worse again, a soft thing, something that's not that important. It isn't soft. It isn't nice. It's crucial to what's going to happen or not happen in your organization.
A soft skill. It's a trigger for me. It is a word I ban. People skills are the hardest skills to get. Finish with one line I use often. You know the phrase, it takes a village to raise a child? So I always say, it takes an organization to create a culture. Not one person, not HR, takes a whole organization.