Transcript The Brief – fitting-in have been asked to

Fire Service Culture
An interactive workshop aimed at improving
understanding
Local Government Annual Conference
Manchester
March 2010
Dr Dave Baigent
[email protected]
I think therefore I am
Or am I?
So what is fire service culture?
?
There can be a number of views about
fire service culture
1. The culture is set by Chief Fire Officers:
•Implemented by managers
•Accepted by firefighters
2. Values that officers and firefighters have in
common
3. The firefighters’:
Values that one cohort of firefighters pass down to the next
on how they get their job done
Formal (organisational) culture
Post Bain there have been a number of changes:
– The National Framework
– Politicians and Chief Officers establish their IRMP
– Set the standards for their fire and rescue service
• Support this by IPDS and core values
– Along come the auditors ………….
This is the formal culture
One Culture?
One fire service – two cultures?
More often get listed under a single title – Fire Service Culture
It may be a mistake to see just one culture – could there be two?
The rules set out by Chief Officers (formal or organisational
culture)
The way things are done around here (firefighters’ informal or
occupational culture)
Why do people join the F RS?
&
People join the fire service to become firefighters
Most of them know about how culture operates
(male hierarchies)
You train them
But are your current workforce supportive of what
has followed on from Bain?
So when a new firefighter joins the
watch
Most people are aware that you have to be cautious when you join a
new group
How would you act?
Most of us look for clues
We construct our actions based on our previous experience
And what we see in the group we are trying to join
–Here is a tip from two firefighters:
Ian:
Just keep your head down and keep your gob shut
for a little while and see what happens
Christian:
Well it’s the tradition. They need to be able to fitin .. without being lairy and start telling you .. how
to do it.
Practicing or Practising
Practicing culture is exactly that:
– More than following the rules it is understanding and
interpreting the rules
– And getting the practice right by practise
Firefighters are particularly good at ensuring that everyone on
their watch practice in the same way
By practising the practice the watch get:
–Their social solidarity
–Their sense of belonging
– fit-in (with the way things are done around here)
Does the culture have a life of its own?
The informal culture represents the shared experience of how
firefighters get their job done:
A series of answers to problems and ways of understanding the work
that is handed down from generation to generation
These shared assumptions are the social glue that holds a watch
together:
• Firefighters choose to fit-in with this
• But their choice is not necessarily made in conditions of their own
choosing
How much choice?
A firefighter explains:
Just overpowering .. it’s hard to explain, ‘come on lets
do this’ and it just rolls.
It’s like a snowball and it just gets bigger and bigger
And you get caught up in it as it rolls and gets bigger.
And that’s the only way I can explain it in our watch.
An example of what can happen
The collective failure of an organisation to provide an
appropriate and professional service to people because of
their colour, culture and ethnic origin.
It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and
behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting
prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping
which disadvantage minority ethnic people
(Macpherson1999)
Positive points about the informal
(occupational) culture?
Represents the custom and practice of getting the
job done.
Established firefighters handing down the skills of
their job:
• How to handle equipment (safely)
• How to fight fires (safely)
• How to rescue people from cars (safely)
The informal culture also has a welfare
role
Provides a pool of useful information and resources:
• Helps with stress
• Helps by providing tips on things away from the station:
– Decorating
– Social life
– In fact it is possible to get a solution to almost any
problem by sharing it at the mess table
For many firefighters the watch represents their way
of knowing and understanding the world
Provides the tools for survival on the watch
Teaches new firefighters about:
• Belonging
• Self-esteem
• Loyalty
And most importantly about:
• Trust
In short the informal culture fits everyone in with
the watch’s way of doing things
The informal culture also teaches newcomers about
what it means to be a firefighter:
– Their identity, their role and their image
Are all informal cultures the same?
Mostly the answer is “Yes”
The informal culture provides ways to support
firefighters’ professional ethos
which is
To provide an efficient service to the public:
• Getting to incidents quickly
• Being efficient with their equipment
• Doing a job that the public celebrate as heroic
Again this relates to how firefighters do their job and
get their identity
Is there a conflict?
Sometimes firefighter’s professional ethos is
challenged by changes adopted by the formal culture:
– New shift systems
– Changes in fire cover
Uniquely for an organisation so widespread in terms
of time and geography each watch can transfer their
solidarity to form up under the umbrella of their
union
– Or anything that challenges a firefighters identity
Another example from the police
7.5 …. a slow and cumbersome bureaucracy,
traditionally resistant to change and subject to a
particular type of organisational culture
which is, at best, a positive driver to perform
complicated tasks quickly
but at worst a critical barrier to change.
(HMCIC 2004: 138)
Public services operate in a
complicated dynamic
Key stake holders – with potentially some competing interests
–Government
–Local Politicians
–Citizens
–Chief Officers/Strategic Managers
–Senior Managers
–Station Managers
–Firefighters
–Representative bodies
–Audit Commission
One Service?
But Two Cultures
Mostly working together to achieve their
ethos: but…………
– Change is only really possible if you understand your
culture
– Do you?
– Can fitting-in help?
– Visit our website www.fitting-in.com
– Contact us on [email protected] – Mob 07802 495 329
Dr. Dave Baigent GradIFire E. FHEA. BA Hons. PhD.
Mobile 07802 495 329
We are just completing a cultural audit on the retained service – would a cultural audit help in your future planning?
The Swedish Fire Service have commented
"Fitting-in with their unique insight into real world fire service culture and a firm theoretical base in academia provided the MSB
(The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency) with invaluable expert advice and assistance in developing a national action plan
targeted at increasing equality and diversity in the Swedish fire service."
Theory without practice is a waste - Practice without theory is just dumb
How can fitting-in help? Try a visit to http://www.fitting-in.com
Dave also wrote and is a principal lecturer on the UK’s first Public Service Degree www.anglia.ac.uk/publicservice
Dave's thesis on Fire Service Culture/s
By being reactive to fire, firefighters create their public profile. Firefighters are seen to be doing their job and to be heroes.
Firefighters’ public status, then in turn, supports one of the ways firefighters reflexively view themselves as objects in the eyes
of the ‘others’. The civilians that say “I couldn’t do your job” (a view of themselves that Chapter 3 suggests firefighters might
actually provide for public consumption in the first place).
To read more go to www.fitting-in.com/baigent.pdf