From HR to People and Culture: What does the shift mean for HR talent?

The move from HR to People and Culture has become increasingly common, but behind the change in title is a much more interesting shift in what businesses expect from their HR teams.

The fundamentals of HR haven't gone away. Employee relations, employment law, policy and compliance remain as important as ever. But alongside them, many HR teams are taking on a wider role in leadership development, talent and succession, employee engagement, culture and organisational effectiveness.

For those of us working in HR recruitment, this changes the conversations we're having with both clients and candidates. Businesses are thinking differently about the skills they need in their HR teams, while HR professionals are having to consider the experience they need to build as their careers develop.

Leanne Boddy, Associate Director at Macmillan Davies recently spoke to Alex Darby, Head of People and Culture at Aimia Foods, about the company's own move from HR to People and Culture and what had actually changed behind the new name.

The work came before the name

Aimia Foods formally changed the name of its HR function to People and Culture in February 2026, but Alex is clear that the transition started much earlier.

When she returned from maternity leave in 2022, following the pandemic, the expectations people had of work had changed. Flexibility and wellbeing were much more prominent, as were conversations about leadership and what people wanted from their employer.

Aimia Foods started by listening. The business ran employee focus groups, with members of the senior leadership team involved, to understand what people needed and where their experience at work could be improved.

That led to greater investment in leadership development, wellbeing, team effectiveness and culture.

Not every change needed to be significant. Meetings became 25 or 50 minutes rather than automatically filling a 30 or 60-minute diary slot. People were encouraged to decline meetings where they weren't adding value. Conversations about boundaries and different working hours became more normal, and teams spent more time understanding different personalities and ways of working.

Over time, the remit of Alex's team changed too. Its focus moved further into leadership capability, talent, succession, engagement, culture and organisational effectiveness, with the team becoming more involved in preparing the business for what it would need in the future.

As Alex explains: 

“We don't just support through compliance of the business anymore, we're much more involved in helping shape it. The work we do has become less about processes and more about capability and about making sure the organisation has the people, leadership and culture needed for the future.”

Alex also makes an important point about what allowed that to happen. The core HR foundations were already working well. Moving into a broader People and Culture remit didn't mean leaving traditional HR behind; it meant having the opportunity to build on it.

When Alex launched her five-year People strategy earlier this year, formally changing the team's name felt like the natural next step.

She described the journey internally as Personnel to HR to People and Culture. Personnel had largely been associated with administration and transactions; HR professionalised people management; and People and Culture built on those foundations with a broader focus on how people, leadership and culture can support the business.

As Alex says: 

“The name change wasn't the catalyst. The work and the contribution we made had already evolved, and the name change came second.”

That is perhaps the most important point for any business considering making the same move. A new name won't change the role HR plays within an organisation. The work has to change first.

What does this mean for HR recruitment?

For HR recruitment, the widening remit of the function has a very practical impact.

Technical HR knowledge remains important, but businesses recruiting senior HR professionals are often looking for more alongside it. If the person coming into the role is going to be expected to develop leaders, improve succession, strengthen engagement or help shape the culture of the organisation, those capabilities need to form part of the recruitment brief.

It can also mean moving away from simply replacing like for like when somebody leaves.

Before going to market, it is worth considering how the business has changed since the role was last recruited. The HR function may now be dealing with very different challenges, whether that's developing a stronger leadership population, retaining key skills, planning succession or supporting growth and organisational change.

The person who was right for the role five years ago isn't necessarily the profile the business needs for the next five.

Job titles can make this more difficult. A Head of HR in one business might already lead talent, culture, leadership development and organisational change. A Head of People and Culture somewhere else may have a very different remit. Two candidates with similar titles on their CVs can have very different experience.

We therefore can't take the title at face value. Understanding what somebody has actually been responsible for, how much influence they have had and what they have changed within an organisation tells us far more.

What does it mean for HR careers?

There is another side to this for HR professionals thinking about their own career development.

A strong grounding in HR remains essential, particularly for those moving towards senior leadership positions. What is changing is the range of experience that can be valuable alongside it.

Someone who wants to progress into a broader Head of People, People Director or HR Director role may need to demonstrate experience of talent, leadership development, organisational effectiveness or culture, depending on the organisation they want to join.

Just as importantly, candidates need to be able to explain the difference their work has made.

There is a big difference between saying you managed a talent process and explaining how you used it to identify a succession risk and develop people internally. The same applies to engagement surveys, leadership programmes or culture projects. The activity matters, but so does what changed as a result.

Commercial understanding and the ability to influence are becoming increasingly important too. As People teams become more involved in shaping the organisation, senior HR professionals need to be comfortable working with leadership teams and understanding what the business is trying to achieve, not just what HR needs to deliver.

Giving managers more ownership

One particularly interesting part of Aimia Foods' approach is that broadening the role of the People team hasn't meant taking ownership of more and more activity.

In fact, Alex has deliberately tried to make good people practice easier for the rest of the business to own.

When the new People and Culture identity was introduced, Alex launched a People Team Manifesto alongside it, setting out how her team would work with colleagues. One of its principles is “We say Yes and…”.

Rather than immediately telling someone they can't do something because there isn't a policy, the expectation is that the team looks at how it could work, or what might be possible instead.

A People Playbook was introduced at the same time. It uses short, practical exercises to help managers create their own People Plans, Team Development Plans and Hiring Plans without turning them into lengthy HR processes. During the launch, Alex gave managers ten minutes at the end of the presentation to complete their first People Plan there and then.

It helped make the point that culture and people management aren't the responsibility of the People team alone.

That approach also tells us something about the skills becoming more valuable within HR. Being able to coach managers, influence decisions, simplify something complicated and give other people the confidence to deal with people matters themselves can be just as important as designing the process in the first place.

Does HR need to become People and Culture?

Not necessarily.

There are excellent HR functions doing all of this work while continuing to call themselves HR and changing a department's name doesn't automatically make it more strategic.

Alex's experience at Aimia Foods is useful precisely because the rebrand came after several years of change. By the time the new name arrived, employees and managers had already experienced a different relationship with the team.

For businesses considering a similar move, the better question may be what they need their HR function to do over the next few years.

If the organisation is growing, where will its future leaders come from? Are there succession or skills gaps? Do managers have the capability they need? Is the business able to attract and retain the people it will need next? What role does culture play in where the organisation wants to go?

Once those priorities are clear, it becomes much easier to work out what capability is already there, where people can be developed and where new HR talent may need to be brought into the business.

The answer may be a People and Culture function. It may be an HR function with a broader remit. The title is less important than making sure the team is equipped for what the business actually needs from it.

Recruiting for what comes next

The move from HR to People and Culture isn't about HR becoming obsolete. If anything, Alex's experience shows how important strong HR foundations are before a function can broaden its role.

What is changing is what businesses increasingly want HR professionals to build on top of those foundations.

For employers, that makes it important to think beyond the existing job description when recruiting. For candidates, it means being able to show not only what they have managed, but where their work has made a difference to the wider organisation.

And for those of us recruiting within HR, it means looking beyond job titles and understanding the person, experience and capability behind them.

At Macmillan Davies, we specialise in HR recruitment and work with organisations and HR professionals across the UK. If you're reviewing the capability of your HR team, recruiting into a changing function or considering your own next move, then please do get in touch.

Get in touch

If you would like to discuss the above, or your search for work/recruiting into your team, please contact Leanne Boddy directly at lboddy@mdhr.co.uk

To ensure you don’t miss any updates from Macmillan Davies and to hear about our latest events, click here to sign up to subscribe to our updates.