Your company's HR practices are out of sync with its values and goals. How do you realign them for success?

To realign HR practices with company values and goals, a structured, transparent, and data-informed approach is needed. This includes conducting a Values-to-Practice Audit, aligning talent strategy with business objectives, reinforcing values through people practices, promoting transparent, inclusive communication, leveraging data and technology, modeling leadership accountability, and institutionalizing continuous improvement. By doing so, HR becomes a strategic enabler of the business's mission in a fast-changing world.

Review existing HR policies, procedures, and behaviors. Identify where they diverge from your company’s stated values and strategic objectives. Ensure your company’s values and goals are clearly defined, communicated, and understood by all employees and HR staff. Conduct surveys, focus groups, or interviews to understand employee perceptions and experiences with current HR practices. Update recruitment, onboarding, performance management, rewards, and development programs to reflect company values and support business goals.

To realign HR practices with company values and goals, we must shift from ‘Human Resources’ to ‘Human Resonance’ — where every policy, process, and performance metric echoes the company’s core purpose. Start by co-creating HR strategies with employees, not for them. Embed value-driven storytelling in onboarding, performance reviews, and recognition systems. Align KPIs not just with productivity, but with purpose. When people don't just work at your company but grow with it — that's when HR becomes a catalyst for culture and a driver of sustainable success."

Values misalignment isn’t just an HR challenge—it’s a strategic risk that can erode trust, culture, and business results. To realign, start by reassessing how your HR policies, leadership behaviors, and talent practices reflect your core values. Redefine leadership expectations, embed values into hiring, onboarding, performance, and recognition processes. Leverage data, feedback loops, and AI tools to monitor alignment in real time. Future-fit HR is human-centered, purpose-driven, and designed to enable agility and trust in a constantly evolving business landscape.

From my experience, realigning HR practices with company values requires a methodical approach. Gather data through employee surveys and focus groups to understand the current perception gap. Create a clear visual map showing where HR practices contradict stated values. Involve leaders from across departments to co-create solutions - this builds buy-in for changes. Prioritize fixing the most visible disconnects first, like hiring processes or performance reviews. Communicate changes transparently, explaining both the "why" and "how."

In my experience, once you’ve clarified your company’s values, the real work begins, identifying where your HR practices fall short. A honest gap analysis across hiring, onboarding, and performance management reveals whether your systems are reinforcing or quietly contradicting and what you stand for. That clarity becomes your roadmap for meaningful change.

This is a clear and valuable layout of the steps needed for realignment. I agree that Step 2, 'Identify Gaps,' is often where the real challenge lies. It requires the organisation to take an honest look in the mirror and acknowledge areas that are out of sync, which can be difficult. This deep, honest assessment is frequently sidestepped, perhaps out of a fear of judgment in the public arena or internally. Unfortunately, when this foundational step is not thoroughly completed, the subsequent steps often risk producing only superficial results that don't address the core issues necessary for sustainable success.

As HR leaders, we audit recruitment, onboarding, performance reviews, and engagement—asking: Are we hiring, onboarding, and rewarding the behaviors that truly reflect our values? From here, we map gaps to a focused action plan and turn our company’s values into measurable impact.

Receiving genuine feedback from employees is essential for effective HR practise. Organisations often focus on restructuring and rewriting policies but miss the true pulse of the workplace—the people. Feedback provides a landscape to assess which policies require urgent attention, ensuring that stakeholder engagement begins with listening. By integrating employee insights, HR can align policies with organizational values and behaviors, fostering cultural cohesion and deeper engagement. The key is to structure feedback-driven policies while preserving their original intent.

❗ Compare current HR policies and practices against company values and goals ❗ Analyze employee feedback, turnover, and engagement data ❗ Spot inconsistencies in hiring, performance, and reward systems ❗ Identify outdated or conflicting procedures ❗ Highlight areas where HR fails to support culture or business objectives ❗ Prioritize gaps based on impact and urgency Identifying gaps reveals where change is needed most!

1. Ensure that the values and goals are clear and up to date. Share them with the HR team to ensure full understanding. 2. Review existing HR policies and procedures (such as recruitment, training, performance management, and rewards). Identify where there are gaps or inconsistencies with the values and goals. 3. Engage Leadership and Management Present the challenges to senior management. Gain their support for changing policies or organizational culture. 4. Develop New HR Strategies 5. Clearly communicate changes to employees. Use multiple channels (meetings, emails, ....). 6. Measure Progress and Continuous Improvement Use KPIs to measure alignment between practices and values. Collect employee feedback and adjust policies as needed

Communication and stakeholder engagement are key, the chances are if you have misalignment it starts with not communicating effectively and not getting the key stakeholders on board. Getting the right buy in and the right communication is crucial (also, make sure you understand how your organisation communicates with its employees I.e. email/intranet).

Realigning HR isn’t a solo act. I partner with employees, managers, and executives to co-create practices that genuinely reflect our values and advance our goals. Collaboration fuels a shared vision and ensures change that sticks.

❗ Identify key stakeholders: leadership, HR team, employees ❗ Communicate the need for HR realignment clearly and transparently ❗ Involve stakeholders early in discussions and planning ❗ Gather their input and concerns to shape solutions ❗ Build consensus and secure commitment to changes ❗ Keep stakeholders updated throughout the process Engaged stakeholders drive smoother, stronger HR transformation!

Redesigning HR processes starts with asking: are we rewarding what we say we value? If innovation is a core value, for instance, do our hiring and performance systems actively seek and support risk-takers? HR shouldn't just support the business—it should reflect its heartbeat. Aligning process with purpose turns values into lived behaviors, not just posters on a wall.

I could recommend firstly make a short audit of every HR practice - ask responsible team to allocate them and then with HR team discuss every practice based on your values and goals. Then you could see that are alined, that not. Then you could use desighn-thinking approach for redefining processes and particular projects in each HR area

With gaps clear and stakeholders’ voices heard, I retool recruitment to spotlight value-fit, refine training to embed key behaviors, and revamp rewards to drive our goals—creatively tailoring each process to our unique culture for lasting impact.

❗ Break old habits by redesigning HR processes to reflect your values boldly ❗ Involve teams in brainstorming fresh ideas and practical improvements ❗ Simplify workflows—make them user-friendly and transparent ❗ Integrate technology to boost efficiency and experience ❗ Test new processes with pilot groups and gather real feedback ❗ Celebrate quick wins and iterate based on what works best Redesign with energy and purpose to make HR a true culture champion!

From experience, implementation is where everything can fall apart or come to life. Clear communication, manager support, and flexibility made all the difference. Change isn’t a one-time event it’s a process that needs constant reinforcement.

I recommend establishing core principles that clearly articulate how to uphold and strengthen the firm's fundamental values. The firm's talent needs to understand how these behaviors tie back to the company's vision, mission, and core values.

I lead clear communication, hands-on training, and ongoing change management—addressing concerns, iterating on feedback, and reinforcing our values every step of the way so strategic visions become real, lasting improvements.

❗ Develop a clear action plan with timelines and responsibilities ❗ Communicate changes openly to all employees—explain the “why” and benefits ❗ Train HR and staff on new processes and tools ❗ Roll out changes in phases to manage impact smoothly ❗ Collect feedback and adjust quickly as needed ❗ Celebrate milestones to keep momentum and buy-in high Implementation done right turns plans into real success!

HR practices are out of synch with its values and goals This is a time to redesign employee experience and the reward system. With initiatives like digitization process redesign will be achieved. Redefine total rewards with initiatives in upskilling, performance management and compensation and recognition system will change the meaning of the work.

I set up metrics and feedback loops to measure behavior shifts, culture alignment, and business outcomes—reviewing regularly and adapting to keep HR practices in lockstep with our values for continuous growth.

❗ Set clear KPIs to measure how new HR processes perform ❗ Use regular check-ins and reports to track progress ❗ Gather ongoing employee feedback for real insights ❗ Identify roadblocks early and troubleshoot swiftly ❗ Adjust strategies based on data and team input ❗ Share successes and lessons learned to motivate everyone Monitoring progress ensures your HR makeover stays on track!