Organisational cultures

in the context of career planning

Image by : NetalloyUsed under a Creative Commons licence

What is Organisational culture?Values and norms shared by people or

groups in an organisation that affect the way in which individuals interact with each other within and outside of the organisation.

‘Organisational cultures' are complex and multi dimensional thus ‘Members of organisations may have goals that are contradictory to senior management’. (Thompson 2003 p8)

Image by : NetalloyUsed under a Creative Commons licence

From an academic point of view understanding organisational culture helps us appreciate:

why organisations might have particular goals,

why organisations employ particular working practices,

why organisations are sometimes not particularly effective or efficient,

how different organisations might work together, or not!

Image by : warszawiankaUsed under a Creative Commons licence

From a personal point of view, understanding organisational cultures and issues related to this can:

Help you show a greater understanding of an organisation in a job application or interview.

Help you to understand what the organisation might be looking for in its workforce.

Help you to reflect on whether you would feel comfortable working within such an organisation.

Image by : feraliminalUsed under a Creative Commons licence

Former students experience‘The reason why I resigned after two months

after finishing training was that it was a completely let down. Equality and human rights were non-existent and I often found myself on the receiving end of sexually harassing comments and sexism. The attitude from other team members completely eroded the confidence that I gained whilst at university. I was the youngest in the office and the only one with a degree and found myself completely isolated and disjointed from the team.

I got absolute no support or encouragement; but criticism was plenty. I am completely gutted with my short experience within the police and feel embarrassed that I have given up such a good job’.

Image by : LiftarnUsed under a Creative Commons licence

Link between expectations and a ‘successful’ career:

Success may be measured not just by status and earnings. Other factors might include:

personal influence, being recognised for one’s achievement,a sense of accomplishment or

achievement,enjoyment, working with integrity achieving an

acceptable work/life balance (Sturges 1999 cited in

Arnold et al 2005)Image by : Merlin 2525

Used under a Creative Commons licence

Point 1: It is important for you to reflect on what you think is important to you in respect of career success as it might help you to choose an appropriate career that will satisfy you.

Image by : zeimusuUsed under a Creative Commons licence

Overview of current trends in careers:

No jobs for life Kandola et al (2003) Job situation is affected by the

economy, global markets, new technology and government legislation.

You are likely to have to re-train at sometime in your life.

Employers expect new graduates to take on more responsibility and ‘add value’ from the start. (ibid)

Employers seek graduates who ‘want to be challenged right from day one’ (Schlumberger Organisation cited in Kandola et al (2003).

Point 2: Employers are looking for ‘work savvy’. This is why experience of being in the ‘work place’ is an essential attribute for graduates along side their degrees.

Image by : inky2010

Used under a Creative Commons licence

Some features of the current employment scene include:

Increasing workload for individuals

Organisational changesMore global competitionMore team-based workMore short-term contractsFrequent changes in skills

requiredMore part time workChanging workforcesMore self employmentWorking from homeIncreased pressure on pension

schemes.Arnold et al (2005)

Image by : OnsemeliotUsed under a Creative Commons licence

Implications for you:Greater need to look ahead and

update skills in order to remain employable.Greater need to make an effort to build up

and maintain a network of contacts.Greater need to initiate, cope with and accept

change.Greater need to handle uncertaintyGreater need for individuals to be flexible in terms of

the work that you are prepared to do.

Point 3: Understanding and being positive about the employment scene will help you to be realistic about your employment aspirations and will enable you to use the situation to your best advantage.

Image by : 1Percent RevolutionUsed under a Creative Commons licence

Career Anchors? (Schein 1993)

An area of your self concept that you would not give up:

Managerial competence: responsibility, leadership and income.

Technical/Functional competence: specialist skills, knowledge and expertise. Identity is built around work

Security: Need for a reliable and predictable environment.

Autonomy and independence: Freedom from restrictions,

Entrepreneurial creativity: Want to run own business etc.

Pure challenge: Wants to win against strong competition.

Service/Dedication: need for work that expresses social, political, religious or other values,

Lifestyle integration: Life balance between work, family, leisure and other activities is maintained.

Image by : bogdanko

Used under a Creative Commons licence

What is your career anchor?Point 4: You could think

about what is your main ‘career anchor’ in order to consider what you can and cannot compromise on in terms of your career.

Image by : anonymousUsed under a

Creative Commons licence

Professionalism: Many of the types of work that you

might look at would be broadly described as a Professional Job:

This is not a neutral description but the term is value laden McCulloch and Tett (1999).

Professions are controlling and legitimising structures operating in the interests of members of the particular professional group:

‘The Professional has knowledge which other people do not have’ (Holdsworth cited in McCulloch and Tett 1999 p38).

This is quite empowering if you are ‘one of the group’, and conversely can be exclusionary for those who are not ‘in the know’.

Image by : anonymousUsed under a

Creative Commons licence

Jargon-speak!

MAPP’s, CARAT’s, YOT’s NOM’s SATs. SOCO, ARV, RTA. IC1. DLA, IC,

Point 5: Professional jobs often have a professional language, have particular procedures and are affected by governmental policy and legislation. It helps to know something about this so that you can give the impression that you are the type of graduate who will ‘hit the ground running’ if they employ you.

Image by : merzok

Used under a Creative Commons licence

Managerialism:Since the 1980’s Corporatism, with its emphasis

on management, performance and cost effectiveness has affected the employment scene.

Corporatism means the process of putting together different organisations with the aim of identifying and dealing with a common goal.

Kirton 2005 identifies that whilst for critics, corporatism is seen as a repressive force using state power to increase surveillance and control over those who deliver and receive services, for those who support this, it would seem to offer the potential for ‘joined up’ responses, so that agencies can work together towards a common goal.

Point 6: Its worth knowing something about the types of performance indicators agencies have to adhere to and what outcomes they are trying to achieve.

Image by : tavin

Used under a Creative Commons licence

Inter-agency Partnerships:According to Newman (cited in Wood and

Kemshall 2008) Partnerships as a mode of governance began to gain ground throughout the 80’s and 90’s building on a historical tradition of attempts to create ‘joined up’ government.

This was due to the increased fragmentation and complexity of the public sector.

Neo-liberalism encourages rolling back state control and bringing in market forces to underpin public services

See new models of partnership ranging from public/private partnerships across central and local public service delivery to local community based partnerships often led by the voluntary sector.

Lateral thinking:Lots of partnerships can equate to lots of

different ways of getting the job that you want.

Look at other agencies if the one that you are interested in is not recruiting

Remember that the voluntary or private sectors are a good place to look apart from the public sector.

Look at multi-agency teams to find out about different agencies and organisations that may be involved in dealing with a particular problem or common goal that interests you.

Image by : anonymous

Used under a Creative Commons licence

Pluralisation of ‘policing’ (Crawford 2008)

MI5 and MI6; Ministry of Defence Police; Civil Nuclear Constabulary British

Transport PolicePort/Docks Police Serious Fraud OfficeCustoms and Border Police Benefit FraudHealth and Safety Executive Environment

AgencyStreet Wardens Anti-soc Behaviour

teamsHousing Officers Community Safety

PartnersTraffic Wardens Ofcom; Ofwat, OfgemAudit Commission.

Point 7: Show lateral thinking: see the existence of multi agency partnerships as an opportunity to be able to get into areas that you are interested in, by different routes. Image by :

ryanlerchUsed under a

Creative Commons licence

Problems:

Collaboration is sometimes difficult because differences between cultures may arise:

‘much collaboration is ‘phantom’ because different workers and different organisations continue to work in parallel rather than by changing practices’ (Milburn cited in McCulloch and Tett 1999 p41)

Point 8: you might like to think how some of the skills that we encourage in the course such as qualitative research methodologies and also group work, might prepare you for the difficulties of working in inter-agency partnerships in the ‘real world’.

Wikipedia commonsThis file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Getting to grips with work culture.Considerable documentation on the issue of

police culture: Skolnick; Westmarland, Reiner etc.

But other organisations have cultures too. Many corporate disasters, miscarriages of

justice and other problems have occurred due to problematic cultures within organisations, but organisational cultures are often complex, don’t necessarily have 100% acceptance from workers and can sometimes be positive.

Chan (1996) challenges the idea that the police are passive by-standers in the culture.

Foster (2004) talks about there being multiple cultures in the police, which is the case in other organisations too.

Culture as a coping mechanismAccording to

Reiner (2000) whilst for police culture, things like machismo, intolerance, prejudice and conservatism are known as important aspects of the culture, he also identifies that Police culture helps officers cope with the tensions and pressures facing them.

By Chris Brown

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Pressured jobs?

It was very daunting at first. It was a big step coming to work in a prison … A very big step. I remember the first morning here … I was that nervous I couldn’t stop shaking. Obviously I was scared stiff, like. …it suddenly hit me how outnumbered we were, and they [the prisoners] were shouting ‘Rookies! Rookies!’ I was terrified then. You had to keep your hands in your pockets so that they couldn’t see your hands shaking. I was that frightened! (Prison Officer in Crawley 2004 p 92).

Image by : workerUsed under a

Creative Commons licence

Official and un-official cultures:Whilst equality is officially promoted in all

professions, this might not be the case in reality as can be seen in this comment from Crawley’s research:

As soon as they knew there was women on the course some of the blokes said ‘Oh no, fucking splits! I hope I haven’t got one on my team’. They were looking for mistakes all the time. If the women fell over running up the stairs with their shields, they’d get called a stupid bitch, but if a bloke fell over they just laughed.

(cited in Crawley 2004 p91)

Image by : omertaUsed under a Creative Commons licence

You and your work…

About the Police:“you drive along and you see things or

read things differently to your wife or friends and invariably matchboxes and cheques are covered with car numbers and this sort of thing. You go to the football, and you tend to be more aware, to keep your eye on the yobs, or you notice odd things…”(Reiner 1978)

Image by : MolumenUsed under a

Creative Commons licence

Work influences:Like police officers, prison officers are

specifically trained to be suspicious; … the ability to ‘read’ people and situations is crucial for the maintenance of order and indeed for his or her own safety …Summing up the advice of the trainers, a female officer commented that ‘at training college, you’re taught never to trust the bastards!’ …

the development of a suspicious ‘mindset’ has certain knock-on effects for officers’ relationships outside as well as inside the prison. …‘You get to think that everybody is out to do you harm if they get the chance … You get to think, well, they’re all scroats. That’s it. End of story’ (senior officer, Lancaster Farms). (Crawley 2004 p86).

Image by : workerUsed under a Creative Commons licence

Conclusion:Point 9: Understanding

organisational culture and being able to reflect on what is important to you in a job, and also how you might cope with organisational cultures may help to make you more informed in your choice of career.