Imagine the HR Christmas party, says Marcus Robbins, Chief Digital Advisor – Strategy, Leadership, Culture at Fujitsu. In one version the HR director is sitting there on their own, glass in hand. Why? Because all the work has been automated by AI agents. Fast forward a couple of years and that same room is full of people celebrating a great year. There people work alongside AI. His point is clear: the future of work is not about replacing people, it is about redesigning work so that people remain the differentiator.

This theme ran throughout the September Business Culture Connected conference, where speakers from global brands, consultancies and research groups explored how culture can thrive in an AI-powered world. From rethinking leadership to building resilience, purpose and connection, the day revealed seven lessons for shaping culture when technology is everywhere but people still decide the outcome.

1. Culture is the only differentiator left

A recent Microsoft Trends report notes that we are entering an era where intelligence on tap will rewire business. But author and workplace culture expert Bruce Daisley cautions against assuming this will give any company an edge. “You can end up very quickly in a place where AI ceases to be a point of advantage and starts being just a point of continuity among everyone facing the same challenge.”

His conclusion? The only thing that will differentiate organisations is their culture. “The ability to interact with other people, to take on board what they’re saying, maybe to respond to that, is really critical.”

To frontline staff, however, culture often feels distant. “Eighty-seven percent of frontline workers don’t think their company’s culture applies to them.” Yet these same workers talk about having their own culture, what Daisley calls a “micro-culture”. Culture, in other words, lives locally, not in corporate manifestos.

At Lloyds Banking Group Future of Work & Culture Strategist Tom Kegode turned this into action through “culture catalysts” who identify and challenge blockers and behaviours that don’t fit the culture. Leaders were also coached in areas such as short-form video storytelling to make the bank’s purpose tangible for frontline and office-based staff alike.

At emc3 purpose is brought to life through volunteering and B Corp commitments, not posters on the wall. “Younger generations won’t join organisations that don’t have purpose,” said CEO Alistair Graham

Tips:
• Forget slogans: culture lives in the small, daily choices people make.
• Focus on team culture as much as corporate values.
• Use nudges and catalysts to shift behaviour in the flow of work.
• Co-create purpose statements with employees to build authenticity.
• Treat culture as your only real differentiator.

2. Resilience is systemic, not taught

Resilience, the idea that we can bounce back from things, has become an industry but Daisley is sceptical. “Never in the history of resilience has someone been resilient because their boss sent an email around saying you need to be more resilient next quarter,” he argued. Instead, resilience depends on three factors: control, community and identity.

Nikki and Ged Welch of Naturally High Performance, with Mark Dewhurst of Simply Culture, suggested that overthinking is the hidden drain on energy. “Insight is the antidote. It’s what moves us through the world. And the best bit is that insight is a built-in capacity that we all have and it happens entirely naturally, generally, when we aren’t thinking too hard,” explained Ged Welch. Their ‘Powering Our Potential’ (or POP) case study from tissue paper convertor Accrol (now Navigator Tissue) proved the point: by quieting mental clutter staff became more creative and decisive, driving a 35% market share growth and an eventual company sale at full value.

Tips:
• Build resilience by strengthening control, community and identity.
• Strip away overthinking and noise instead of piling on training.
• Reskill staff into new careers to show belief in their potential.
• Make learning a rhythm, not a side project.

3. Reskilling and lifelong learning are culture in action

Reskilling is not a side project but culture expressed through investment in people. Andrea Kilgour, People Director at Domestic & General, described a programme from her time at EE. The company had a realisation around existing talent in the business, the need for new skills and the costs of bringing people in from outside. So it decided to invest in reskilling for 20 cybersecurity roles. Some 120 people, all without experience in the area, jumped at the chance to be trained and all 20 jobs were filled internally. “Many have gone on to double their salaries and now have a different belief and purpose in the organisation. This is a great example of where, with a little bit of thought and a little bit of courage, you can actually really change the lives of other people,” she explained.

Both Lloyds’ Kegode and Alistair Graham, CEO of emc3, emphasised the importance of embedding rhythms of collective learning. At Lloyds the bank created ‘drop everything and learn’ days once a quarter to normalise development in the flow of work while Graham stressed the importance of connection including quarterly virtual events. As he noted, 44% of skills will need retraining in the next five years. Reskilling is not only a workforce strategy but a cultural statement: it tells employees the organisation believes in them.

Amanda Fajak, Global Culture Practice Leader at ZRG Consulting Solutions, pointed out that Google’s head AI scientist says that learning how to learn is the most important skill in the AI era.

Tips:
• Link reskilling to both skills gaps and cultural confidence.
• Show belief in people by investing in their long-term growth.
• Use reskilling to build purpose and loyalty, not just fill roles.
• Treat reskilling as a cultural commitment, not a transactional fix.

4. Curiosity and empowerment unlock progress

Changing systems can unlock behaviours. Harsh Vekaria, former Global Head of Organisational Culture and Leadership Development at TikTok, described how hierarchy suppressed questioning. “A lot of people were deferring to, well, who’s the most senior person in the room and what do they say we need to do? And we’ll do that.”

TikTok stripped away signals of rank. “There are no job titles in terms of seniority, no VPs, no directors. There are no published organisational charts in the business. It introduced a lot of chaos … but it helped people feel more empowered. You’d have some really junior, less experienced colleagues asking some really valid questions. Why do we do things this way? Or who said we need to do this? Or why are we prioritising this project?”

For Vekaria this showed that if you want curiosity you need to re-engineer the system that suppresses it. Strip away hierarchy and people naturally feel more empowered to ask questions and challenge assumptions.

At VML Global Director, Talent & Organisational Effectiveness Vidhi Thakker highlights another route to curiosity: embracing fear and reframing it as play. “One [key to curiosity and adaptability] is embracing the fear. And I know that sounds like an absolute cliche. But it’s really just letting people know it’s okay to be afraid. And then trying to convert that fear into something more fun.”

One example is gamification to drive adoption of new tools. “We have our own GPT platform called WPP Open. We launched it to drive adoption, get people to be comfortable with this technology. We ran lots and lots of competitions, not just across markets, but also across functions. And that creates this curiosity at a crucial point but also this enthusiasm about, can I do better than someone else, and what can I learn from who ends up winning?”

Thakker also sees curiosity as inseparable from learning. “How do we instil this idea of being comfortable with fun learning?” she asked. To support this, VML has invested in AI-enabled coaching for all levels, not just executives. “We find that that’s exceptionally powerful because individuals truly get personalised access to insights, self-awareness, and then creating those plans for skill gaps that they need to prepare for.”

Curiosity, whether sparked by removing hierarchy or gamifying learning creates the conditions where people feel free to ask questions, take risks and grow.

Tips
• Redesign systems that stifle curiosity, such as visible hierarchies.
• Encourage employees to embrace fear and turn it into curiosity.
• Use gamification and competition to spark enthusiasm for learning.
• Pair fun learning with coaching and personalised feedback.
• Recognise that curiosity is what multiplies the value of AI.

5. AI can shift behaviour – but only if it’s people first

Artificial intelligence is often talked about in terms of productivity, automation or efficiency. But its most powerful impact on culture may be at the level of everyday behaviour.

Elie Rashbass, CEO of ScultureAI, describes culture as something that lives in the thousands of small interactions that happen daily. “Culture is shaped by the aggregate of all the little things: a meeting here, an interaction there, an email, a Slack message. Hundreds of thousands of interactions every day.”

This is where AI can make a difference. ScultureAI’s coaching technology works at what Rashbass calls the “last mile”, giving managers private nudges in the flow of work. These prompts might encourage inclusive language, suggest better ways to frame feedback or remind leaders to invite quieter colleagues into discussion. Rather than replacing human judgement the nudges reinforce it, aligning behaviours with the organisation’s stated values.

The legal and ethical guardrails also matter. Dan Fara of Squire Patton Boggs, who hosted the conference, welcomed delegates with a note of caution. “AI in the workplace should not be about replacing trust or culture. What about strengthening them and doing so in a compliant and sustainable way?” He highlighted the risks of rushing into adoption without care: fairness, explainability, data privacy, regulation. The pressure to move fast is real but speed without responsibility risks undermining the very culture AI is meant to support.

AI can help close the gap between what organisations say they value and how people actually behave. But this only works when it is deployed deliberately, with people and trust at the centre.

Tips:
• Use AI nudges to influence behaviour in the flow of work, not as top-down directives.
• Focus on micro-behaviours — meetings, emails, chats — where culture is lived.
• Balance adoption with fairness, accountability and data protection.
• Ensure AI strengthens culture and trust, rather than eroding them.

6. Connection beats dispersion

Without connection, people inevitably start to question the point of coming into the office. Daisley gave the simple but strong example of ‘Crisp Thursday’, a weekly ritual where colleagues brought in crisps and spent time together. His point is that belonging is built less through policies than through everyday rituals that create shared experience.

Thakker showed how recognition can create connection across borders. “We launched SAWUBONA … it’s a Zulu greeting meaning ‘I see you’. And it made people feel visible everywhere.”

At D&G 80% of the workforce is remote across 14 countries. Volunteering has played an important role in connecting people and the firm works with a global charity called Bookmark so that, wherever an employee is in the world, they can read a story for 15 to 30 minutes to a child who wouldn’t have that connection.

Verkaria went further, challenging the assumption that connection can simply be fixed with town halls or team-building. “We tried to overcome this by creating more opportunities to connect, let’s have town hall stand-ups, let’s do some sort of fun activity. But eventually we realised this is all coming at a cost.”

At TikTok, he explained, the CEO often spoke about a ‘playing to win’ mindset. “Some companies will play to be good. And that’s okay. Some companies will play to win. And that means they’ll make very difficult decisions because they’re in the market to disrupt.”

This shaped how TikTok thought about dispersed teams. “The invitation to consider [was], do you actually need people in that location? Is it driving a strategic business advantage to have that person in that city or country? And if it’s not, how much is it costing you in terms [of] collaboration effort to maintain that? These are some difficult conversations that we had … but are needed if you’re playing to win in a very competitive market.”

And at Lloyds Kegode reimagined offices as cultural hubs. “We hosted family days for 5,000 kids. It made people see the workplace as part of their lives, not separate from it.” He also turned generational divides into learning opportunities, pairing apprentices with people who had been with the company 30+ years and turning a generational divide into a generational exchange.

Tips:

• Rituals and recognition build belonging more than policies.
• Design connection into dispersed work intentionally.
• Use offices as culture hubs, not just task spaces.
• Turn generational divides into generational exchange.

7. This is HR’s hero moment

Don’t waste money on superficial automation, warns Fujitsu’s Robbins. Most AI pilots fail because they automate old processes, he argued. The prize is redesigning work around value, not cost, and this is where HR leaders come in. He urged them to seize the mantle of Chief Alignment Officer: aligning people, AI-augmented people and AI agents.

“This is where HR has a unique capability because you get skills and people in a way that the rest of the organisation probably doesn’t. This is a turning point for HR. This is your hero moment. This is where HR can realise its full potential,” he said.

Rashbass agreed. “I agree strongly that this is HR’s moment to lead performance, to lead transformation and to own the ability of what AI can do.” He suggested starting small and delivering fast.

ZRG’s Fajak reminded delegates that: “Culture should always be in service to what you’re trying to achieve strategically” while Jo Moffat, chair of the event, summed up HR’s role today succinctly: “In a world where increasingly there are challenges to the value, the role and the activities HR professionals deliver on a day-to-day basis the lesson from today is clear. What you do matters. What you do counts. You matter and culture is what makes workplaces work. That’s absolutely crucial.”

Tips:
• Redesign jobs for value creation, not cost-cutting.
• Step into the Chief Alignment Officer role.
• Make HR, not IT, accountable for AI culture.
• Keep sight of fundamentals: leadership, narrative, voice, integrity.

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