Understanding The Role Of HR Within Culture Change At Work With Dan Wilbeck

It’d be great to understand how you got into the HR industry and how it’s led you to where you are today.

So, I didn’t originally plan to be in HR. Everyone I’ve met has accidentally fallen into HR at some point. My starting point was actually as a funeral director for a small funeral company.

That business grew and grew, and as it expanded, different responsibilities needed picking up. I was quite savvy with admin, and it became clear that someone needed to take on the HR function. I stepped into that space, and that’s really where I was first introduced to HR.

Now, 15 years later, I’m still in HR. Over that time, I’ve moved across a number of corporate roles, including manufacturing and the tech industry, gaining a broad range of experience. Then about two years ago, I made the decision that I could probably do this better, or at least practise what I would call good HR from a consultancy perspective rather than remaining in-house.

A big part of that decision came from not wanting to become too institutionalised. When you’re working internally in HR, it’s very easy to get drawn into internal dynamics, politics, and pressures. That can sometimes sway your judgement away from doing what you know is right and good. Moving into consultancy allowed me to step back from that and stay more objective, and that’s really where the consultancy arm was born.

And from there, you joined Jennie Detheridge with IG-HR from that consultancy perspective. Is that your wider role within the organisation?

Yes, exactly. I had my consultancy running on the side, and Jennie had hers as well.

At the time, we were both going through a period of burnout. I was still in the corporate environment but had already started building a client base and was looking to transition into self-employment fully. It made sense for us to bring things together rather than continue separately.

So we merged our consultancies, and that was almost two years ago now. It allowed us to combine our experience, share the workload, and build something more sustainable together.

What originally caught my interest was your focus on the Japanese concept of Ikigai. Could you explain how you apply that through an HR lens and what it means in that context?

Yeah, of course. The IG in IG-HR actually stands for ikigai. The reason we shortened it is because people often struggled to pronounce ikigai, or they’d get it mixed up. Some even thought it was Jen’s initials, which it isn’t.

We use the four pillars of ikigai as a framework to understand someone’s “reason for being,” and then we apply that thinking into the workplace. It becomes a guiding principle for how we approach HR advice and strategy.

At its core, humans are a company’s biggest resource, so it’s important to empower people through that ikigai lens. That means making sure they’re being paid for what they do, that they genuinely enjoy what they’re doing, that they’re gaining enrichment and satisfaction from it, and that they’re progressing toward something like Maslow’s self-actualisation, which amounts to reaching that peak version of themselves where they’ve effectively found their ikigai.

When that happens, it translates naturally into the world of work. From the employer’s perspective, it then becomes about defining what good looks like. How do we ensure that everything we’re doing meets a strong standard? Because there’s no real point in doing something if you’re not going to do it properly. That’s always been my outlook.

What’s quite powerful is how the employee and employer perspectives come together through ikigai. It creates a kind of balance where both sides benefit, and that really underpins how we offer advice and guidance in practice.

What role do you believe HR has in helping to instill culture change or influence behaviour across employees and leadership?

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that HR is solely responsible for culture. In reality, everyone is responsible for culture.

HR can absolutely act as a driving force, and often sits within that senior leadership space, but it’s very similar to health and safety. Everyone needs to take ownership. If that ownership isn’t shared, you end up with HR sitting in the corner saying, “We need better culture,” without anyone really listening or engaging with it.

For culture to genuinely be embedded, it has to involve everyone in the organisation. HR can help lead that conversation and guide it, but it can’t carry it alone. That said, I do think HR is in a strong position to influence and lead culture when it’s supported properly. Everyone is on the bus together when it comes to culture. Often, when people appear disengaged, it’s not because they’re not interested. What has happened is that the benefits for them haven’t been communicated clearly. 

You can’t have one person standing at the front shouting about it while everyone else is disengaged. If you think of it visually, it’s not a straight line. It’s more like a shape with multiple sides, like a triangle, where different people are contributing from different angles.

Another misconception I’ve seen is around HR’s visibility and influence. When I was working in corporate environments, if I wasn’t getting responses or engagement, I’d immediately question myself, wondering if I’d done something wrong or if I wasn’t being included at the leadership level.

But in reality, HR isn’t always front of mind for other departments. If you think about someone in operations, finance, or IT, they’re focused on their own priorities. HR professionals are immersed in HR issues all day, every day, but for others it might only represent about 10% of their overall thinking.

That can create the feeling that you’re constantly fighting for a seat at the table, when actually it’s just a difference in focus. People aren’t ignoring HR intentionally. The truth is they’re just preoccupied with their own responsibilities.

I think sometimes people in HR can get bogged down by that perception and take it personally, when nine times out of ten it’s simply that others have different priorities at that moment.

What are your thoughts on HR and L&D working together, as I’ve spoken with L&D people who’ve said that L&D can sometimes be lumped in with HR, which makes it harder for them to get buy-in from senior leaders.

From my perspective, HR is the umbrella term, and underneath that you have different areas like employee relations, L&D, engagement, and culture. In some organisations, even payroll sits within that structure.

L&D is essentially a branch of that tree, so it should absolutely work in harmony with HR. There shouldn’t be silos between those functions. In one of my previous roles, L&D was based in the US while I was the sole HR representative elsewhere in a global organisation. That created a separation where L&D and HR sometimes operated independently, and communication between the two wasn’t always strong.

You’d end up with situations where it was “this is what L&D says” versus “this is what HR says,” without alignment. In reality, both are working toward the same overall goal.

A lot of the challenge comes down to structure and leadership. Some organisations have an HR manager but no overarching leadership that connects HR and L&D. Ironically, HR itself is sometimes the last function to have that clarity in hierarchy. At the end of the day, HR is about people, and L&D is about developing those people. Logically, they should always be working in tandem.

Let’s talk about how IG-HR’s approaches training. What does your training involve and what case studies can you share? 

Most of our training focuses on management development, particularly working with what we call “accidental managers.”

These are individuals who have been promoted because they were excellent in their role, but not necessarily because they wanted to manage people or had the skills to do so. In some cases, they don’t even have the desire to be a manager. Middle managers often fall into this as well, as they’re caught between leadership expectations and employee needs, sitting in a difficult middle ground.

Our approach is to help them understand their role of what their “right to manage” looks like, what authority they have, and how to handle conversations effectively. A lot of the work we do is simply building confidence in those individuals.

We don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Management principles have existed for years and continue to work, so it’s about bringing people back to those fundamentals.

One example was a global shipbuilding company. We worked with their UK team on resilience and bouncing back. They didn’t have in-house HR, and any support they did have came from other countries, which created cultural and language barriers. We integrated ikigai and Blue Zones principles into that training, linking resilience back to purpose and focusing on the “what’s in it for me” aspect. That made the content much more relatable and engaging.

Another example was a canned goods company that wanted to improve how meetings and one-to-ones were run. We split the training into two parts, one for all employees, focusing on how to contribute effectively, and another deeper session for managers on structuring conversations.

We emphasised that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Managers need to be able to adapt and handle situations that fall outside of a rigid framework. The success came from focusing on effectiveness rather than just process.

How do you measure the long-term impact of your training programmes?

We always collect feedback through forms and sessions to continuously improve what we deliver. That includes both qualitative and quantitative data, which involves things like ratings, as well as asking people what specific actions they’ll take away.

For example, with the one-to-one training, we ran around 20 sessions, keeping groups small so we could adapt in real time based on feedback. However, once we step away, it’s really up to the client to act on that information. Sometimes it doesn’t get fully implemented because HR might only represent 10% of their daily focus, and they have many competing priorities.

If we were in-house, we’d be able to follow through more directly. As consultants, we provide the tools and guidance, but the ownership has to sit with the organisation. They need to understand the purpose and the desired outcomes.

One of the most important initiatives in HR right now is the Employee Rights Bill. What impact do you think it has in terms of improving culture within an organisation? 

Overall, I think it’s a positive development. Anything that improves workplace conditions will have a positive impact on culture. A lot of what’s being introduced aligns with what we already define as good HR, which is treating employees with care, respect, and fairness.

We’ve been working with clients to go beyond the statutory requirements. For example, with changes to statutory sick pay like payment from day one we’ve already helped organisations implement occupational sick pay that exceeds those minimums.

There has been a lot of scaremongering and misinformation around the bill, particularly in the media and on social platforms, and that tends to dominate attention. For me, the key is communication. It’s not just about the legislation itself, but how organisations communicate those changes to their employees.

We’ve supported clients by drafting clear communications explaining what’s changing and how it affects employees. That kind of transparency can significantly improve culture. On the other hand, some organisations have updated policies without explaining why, which feels like a missed opportunity. Many employees may not even be aware that anything has changed.

What role do you see AI playing in HR?

Any type of change can feel unsettling, but I think AI will be incredibly helpful. We already see it in areas like customer service, where AI handles initial queries before passing them on to a human. In HR, it can be used to answer straightforward questions like holiday entitlement quickly and efficiently.

It’s not about replacing jobs, but about removing friction from routine tasks.  There will always be a need for the human element. I remember when I first started in HR thinking that robots would eventually take over the world. But even in that scenario, you still need humans to build, maintain, and manage those systems.

HR will continue to evolve, just as it has over time, from personnel management to HR to people and culture roles. But it won’t disappear. Even if AI handles 80% of tasks, the remaining 20% will require emotional intelligence, nuance, and human judgement. We’re not at a point where AI can fully replicate that.

Yeah, it’s a powerful tool, but it’s still a marathon, not a sprint. The human aspect of HR will always remain essential.