From values to value: the HR leader’s guide to cultural transformation

When values are treated like a branding exercise, they lose their power. But when they’re embedded into the fabric of a business, they become a strategic lever for transformation. That’s the message from Kat Barnett, a global HR leader with over 20 years of experience in high-performing, high-growth organisations, including Culture Amp. In conversation with Aseel Ibrahim, Associate Director at Frazer Jones, Kat shares what it really takes to build a values-led organisational culture that drives business outcomes.

Culture change starts with clarity on core values

“Fun, fairness, kindness and keeping your promises,” Kat says, when asked about her personal values. “That’s all about credibility and reputation.” These aren’t just personal principles, they’re the lens through which she evaluates company culture and leadership teams.

For HR leaders, defining core values is only the beginning. The real challenge is translating those values into consistent behaviours across the organisation. “It takes a big investment,” Kat explains. “It takes a lot of work from the most senior leader and everyone owns it, down to the most junior employee.”

This is where human resources play a critical role. HR professionals are often the ones tasked with aligning company values to business goals, ensuring that values are not just aspirational but operational.

From posters to practice: making culture tangible

Too often, cultural initiatives start strong and fade fast. “If you have to dust those values off when things get hard, you’ve lost the trust in people,” Kat warns. She’s seen companies spend heavily on defining their values, only for them to become disconnected from the employee experience.

To avoid that, values must be embedded into HR processes, performance management and decision-making. “They should inform how you design your procedures, who makes what type of decision and when,” she says. “If those behaviours are breached, there should be consequences. They should be boundaries.”

This is where buy-in from stakeholders becomes essential. Without alignment across the leadership team, even the most well-intentioned cultural values can fall flat. “You need to bring values to life in every step, through your communication, your tone, the language that you use.”

Data-informed decision-making, not just data-driven

In a world of dashboards and KPIs, Kat urges HR professionals to take a more nuanced approach. “Being data-informed is a subtle but important difference,” she says. “Data should inform decisions, not dictate them.”

She combines real-time sentiment data from surveys and focus groups with traditional HR metrics like attrition, promotion rates and internal mobility. “You need to know and understand the sentiment of your employees,” she explains. “That’s how you know where to invest, whether it’s a skills piece, leadership development, or well-being initiatives.”

This approach supports more adaptable decision-making processes, especially during periods of cultural transformation. “Everyone’s transforming right now, whether it’s tech, industry, product. But you can’t map the future of work unless you know where you are.”

Culture as a competitive advantage

Kat has worked with organisations where cultural values are deeply embedded and others where they’re little more than messaging. The difference, she says, is consistency and accountability. “When times get really tough, that’s when values become the foundational pillars of how you do business.”

This alignment between values and business strategy is what drives employee engagement, retention and ultimately, business success. “If you don’t design and integrate your values throughout every operational facet of your business, you’re not going to have the trust. You’re not going to have the consistency to change the business without increasing uncertainty.”

Organisational culture is not just about what’s written in a handbook. It’s about how people behave, how decisions are made and how the company responds to challenges. In a post-pandemic world, where hybrid work and adaptability are the norm, culture has become a pivotal factor in attracting and retaining top talent.

The role of external insight and peer networks

Kat also highlights the importance of looking beyond internal silos. “People talk,” she says. “Founders and senior leaders share challenges and ideas. That’s how start-ups become scale-ups, through those networks.”

She continues to draw on research from Culture Amp’s people science team and encourages other HR leaders to do the same. “Some of the best companies want to see everyone succeed. The talent market is small and relationships matter.”

This openness to external insight is a hallmark of people-first leadership. It also reinforces the idea that no organisation operates in a vacuum. Corporate culture is shaped not just by internal initiatives, but by how companies engage with the broader ecosystem.

Bringing your whole self to work

Kat and Aseel touched on a theme that’s increasingly central to modern workplace culture: authenticity. Aseel referenced the Apple TV+ series Severance, where employees are split into two identities, the ‘innie’ who exists only at work, and the ‘outie’ who lives their personal life with no memory of their job. “We don’t have an ‘innie and outie’ anymore,” Aseel said. Kat added, “We are one person. Bringing your professional whole self to work is essential.”

This shift reflects a broader expectation from employees: to be seen and supported as whole individuals, not just job functions. For HR leaders, this means creating space for individuality while maintaining clarity around behavioural expectations and shared values.

Culture is the strategy

For Kat, culture isn’t a side project or a branding exercise, it’s the infrastructure that holds everything together. “It’s not about mugs with ‘honesty’ stamped on them,” she said. “It’s about how you treat your people, how you make decisions and how you show up, especially when it’s hard.”

In a hybrid work environment, where adaptability and alignment are critical, embedding cultural values into the employee experience is essential. This includes everything from performance management and internal messaging to leadership behaviour and talent management. Organisational culture becomes the lens through which business goals are pursued and every leader plays a pivotal role as a role model for the values they expect others to uphold.

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Kat Barnett
Global HR Leader

Kat Barnett is a commercially driven and strategic People and Culture leader with over 20 years of global experience across APAC, EMEA and the UK. Her career spans diverse sectors including technology, entertainment, and retail, where she has led transformative initiatives in organisations of all sizes, from startups to global enterprises.