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HR Culture Architect

Build, measure, and evolve a culture that attracts great people and repels toxic ones. Culture isn't ping-pong tables and free lunch. It's how people behave when no one is watching. This skill helps you design culture intentionally instead of letting it happen by accident.

Philosophy

Culture is the operating system of your organization. It determines how decisions get made, how conflict gets resolved, and who thrives vs. who leaves.

The model:

1. Define — What are your actual values (not the ones on the wall)?
2. Measure — How do you know if culture is healthy or broken?
3. Build — What rituals, processes, and structures reinforce it?
4. Defend — How do you protect it as you scale?
5. Evolve — When and how should culture change?

Input Required

• Company mission and business model
• Current team size and growth plans
• Founder/leadership values and behaviors
• Known culture strengths and weaknesses
• Industry and competitive landscape

Workflow

Phase 1: Culture Audit

Assess your current culture across 10 dimensions:

1. Trust (1-10):
   - Do people share bad news early?
   - Is vulnerability rewarded or punished?
   - Can people disagree openly with leadership?

2. Autonomy (1-10):
   - Can individuals make decisions without approval?
   - Are decisions pushed to the lowest appropriate level?
   - Do people own their work end-to-end?

3. Growth (1-10):
   - Is learning invested in systematically?
   - Do people have clear growth paths?
   - Is failure treated as a learning opportunity?

4. Inclusion (1-10):
   - Do diverse voices get heard and valued?
   - Are there multiple paths to influence?
   - Do people feel they belong?

5. Transparency (1-10):
   - Is information shared openly or hoarded?
   - Do people understand company strategy and financials?
   - Is decision-making visible?

6. Accountability (1-10):
   - Do people follow through on commitments?
   - Is underperformance addressed promptly?
   - Are successes and failures owned publicly?

7. Collaboration (1-10):
   - Do teams work together or in silos?
   - Is knowledge shared freely?
   - Are cross-functional projects successful?

8. Recognition (1-10):
   - Is good work noticed and celebrated?
   - Are there formal and informal recognition systems?
   - Does recognition go beyond the usual suspects?

9. Wellbeing (1-10):
   - Is sustainable work pace the norm?
   - Are mental health resources available and used?
   - Does leadership model healthy boundaries?

10. Purpose (1-10):
    - Do people understand how their work matters?
    - Is the company mission motivating?
    - Is there pride in the product and impact?

Scoring:
  80-100: Exceptional culture. Protect and refine.
  60-79:  Healthy with gaps. Targeted improvements.
  40-59:  Functional but fragile. Systematic work needed.
  Below 40: Culture is a liability. Urgent intervention required.

Phase 2: Values Definition

Define values that actually guide behavior:

Bad values (vague, unactionable):
- "Excellence" — Everyone thinks they're excellent
- "Integrity" — Nobody says "we value dishonesty"
- "Teamwork" — Meaningless without behavioral specificity

Good values (specific, testable, sometimes controversial):
- "Default to transparency" — Share unless there's a reason not to
- "Disagree and commit" — Voice objections, then execute fully
- "Customer obsession over competitor obsession" — Clear priority
- "Boring is beautiful" — Prefer proven over novel
- "Strong opinions, loosely held" — State your view, change with evidence

Value definition framework:
For each value, answer:
1. What does this value LOOK LIKE in practice? (3 specific behaviors)
2. What is the OPPOSITE of this value? (the behavior you're rejecting)
3. When does this value create TENSION? (trade-offs and edge cases)
4. How do you HIRE for this value? (interview questions)
5. How do you FIRE for this value? (what violation looks like)

Example:
Value: "Default to Action"
Behaviors: Ship first, ask permission second. Prefer progress over
           perfection. Make decisions with 70% confidence.
Opposite: Analysis paralysis. Waiting for consensus. Escalating
          decisions that should be made locally.
Tension: Moving fast sometimes breaks things. How do we balance
         speed with quality?
Hire: "Tell me about a time you shipped something without asking
      permission. What happened?"
Fire: Repeatedly escalating decisions that are within their scope.
      Spending weeks on analysis when a decision was needed in days.

Phase 3: Culture Rituals

Build rituals that reinforce your values:

Daily Rituals:
- Standup format that reinforces ownership (not status reports)
- Slack customs (celebration channel, TIL channel, kudos bot)
- Code review norms (teaching vs. gatekeeping)

Weekly Rituals:
- Demo/show-and-tell (celebrate shipped work)
- Team retrospective (continuous improvement)
- Manager 1:1s (career growth, not just task updates)

Monthly Rituals:
- All-hands meeting (transparent company updates)
- New hire introductions (welcome ritual)
- Peer recognition (formal shout-outs)

Quarterly Rituals:
- Hack weeks or creative time
- Team offsites (plan + bond)
- Career development conversations
- Culture health survey

Annual Rituals:
- Company retreat (if remote, gather in person)
- Compensation review and adjustment
- 360 feedback cycle
- Values reflection and update

Anti-rituals (things to eliminate):
- Meetings without agendas or outcomes
- Slack threads that should be docs
- Performance reviews that surprise people
- "Quick syncs" that become recurring meetings

Phase 4: Culture at Scale

Culture breaks at specific inflection points. Plan for them:

1→10 people: Founder culture
Risk: Everything depends on the founder
Action: Start documenting "how we do things"
Keys: Hire for culture add, not just fit

10→50 people: Team culture
Risk: Subcultures form and diverge
Action: Define values explicitly, create rituals
Keys: First managers are culture carriers — hire carefully

50→200 people: Department culture
Risk: Silos form, "us vs. them" emerges
Action: Cross-functional rituals, internal mobility
Keys: Manager quality becomes the culture bottleneck

200→1000 people: Organization culture
Risk: Bureaucracy replaces trust, process replaces judgment
Action: Principle-based decision-making, not rule-based
Keys: Culture budget and dedicated culture team

1000+ people: Enterprise culture
Risk: Consistency vs. local autonomy tension
Action: Culture metrics, local adaptation within principles
Keys: Leadership modeling (culture flows down)

Scaling checklist:
□ Document culture explicitly at 10 people
□ Create culture onboarding at 25 people
□ Add culture interview questions at 50 people
□ Hire HR/people lead at 50-100 people
□ Start culture surveys at 100 people
□ Build internal mobility at 200 people
□ Create culture budget at 200 people

Phase 5: Measuring Culture Health

Quantitative measures:

eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score):
"How likely are you to recommend [Company] as a place to work?"
  Promoters (9-10) - Detractors (0-6) = eNPS
  Target: +30 or above
  Below 0: Urgent attention needed

Key metrics to track quarterly:
- Voluntary attrition rate (target: <10% annually)
- Average tenure
- Internal mobility rate
- Diversity metrics (representation at each level)
- Engagement survey scores
- PTO utilization rate
- Time-to-fill for open roles (lower = employer brand is strong)
- Offer acceptance rate (target: 80%+)
- Glassdoor rating (target: 4.0+)

Qualitative measures:
- Stay interview themes (quarterly aggregation)
- Exit interview patterns
- Glassdoor review themes
- Informal feedback from managers
- Skip-level 1:1 insights

Integration with Other Skills

• hr-candidate-hunter: Culture informs candidate filtering and outreach
• hr-interview-designer: Values are tested in interviews
• hr-onboarding-commander: Culture transmission starts Day 1
• hr-retention-radar: Culture health is the #1 retention factor
• hr-talent-pipeline: Employer brand is a culture output

Files

• memory/hr/culture-audit-[date].md — Quarterly culture assessment
• memory/hr/values.md — Company values with behavioral examples
• memory/hr/culture-rituals.md — Ritual catalog and cadence
• memory/hr/enps-tracking.md — eNPS scores over time
• memory/hr/culture-initiatives.md — Active culture improvement projects