June 22, 2026
Joyce Chen
The Equilar CHRO Content Series offers insights and trends related to top HR officers among the largest U.S. companies. This post discusses how CHROs are managing culture during periods of disruption and how it ties to long-term business strategy.
As corporate America faces ongoing organizational changes and external disruption, culture has become more central to how companies function day to day. It shapes how employees make decisions and how organizations respond during periods of uncertainty. For chief human resource officers (CHROs), culture is no longer treated as a separate HR initiative, but as something that directly affects workforce stability and long-term business performance.
That shift has changed how many CHROs approach culture internally. The focus is less on defining company values and more on examining how business decisions would impact the workforce. Decisions around restructuring and technology adoption now carry clearer cultural consequences, particularly during periods of uncertainty or organizational change. In practice, this often means helping leadership communicate difficult decisions more clearly and addressing gaps between company messaging and employee experience before they affect trust or retention.
How Culture Has Evolved
Before 2020, culture was often tied to the physical workplace. Employees experienced it through office interactions and workplace norms, and these factors influenced how employees interpreted the company and their place within it. When that environment disappeared due to COVID-19 and remote work, CHROs had to rethink what culture really meant and how to maintain it without physical proximity. What followed was not a temporary adjustment but a broader redesign of how work operates. Workplace flexibility quickly shifted from a perk to an expectation, and conversations around burnout and mental health moved into the center. These were not new issues, but they became far more visible. How companies responded became part of how culture was judged.
Culture in the Age of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has added a new layer of complexity to workplace culture, reshaping both how work gets done and how employees interpret leadership decisions. As organizations adopt AI tools more aggressively, employees are paying closer attention to whether leadership is being transparent about workforce impact. Recent layoffs across the technology sector, many of which have been linked to AI-driven efficiency efforts and restructuring initiatives, have heightened concerns around workload and job security. As a result, culture is becoming more closely tied to how leaders communicate through periods of uncertainty. While companies may face pressure to move quickly and remain competitive, there is also a growing expectation for transparency around how technological change will affect jobs and the future of work.
For CHROs, this creates a difficult balancing act between advancing the company’s long-term business goals and maintaining employee trust during periods of transition. CHROs are expected to help leadership navigate those tensions by shaping workforce planning and employee support strategies.
Three Priorities for CHROs
- Treat culture as an operating issue, not an HR initiative. Culture is increasingly shaped by business decisions, from workforce planning to technology adoption, rather than standalone engagement programs.
- Look beyond employee sentiment. Understanding culture requires more than annual surveys. Workforce trends, retention patterns and manager effectiveness often provide earlier signals of cultural change.
- Design for adaptability. The organizations most likely to maintain a strong culture are not those that avoid change, but those that help employees navigate it consistently.
As organizations continue to navigate workforce disruption, economic pressure and technological change, culture has become more closely tied to how companies operate during periods of uncertainty. For CHROs, the challenge is no longer limited to defining company values or maintaining employee engagement. The role now involves helping organizations manage change without creating disconnects between leadership decisions and employee experience. Beyond its role in fostering communication and organizational stability, culture is now recognized as a key pillar of sustained, long-term business performance.
Contact
Joyce Chen
Associate Editor at Equilar
Joyce Chen, Associate Editor at Equilar, authored this post. Please contact info@equilar.com for more information on the CHRO Navigator Program.
