A few years ago I read an article in the professional press which gave an account of a training programme in support of recruiting more women into the fire and rescue service , not as office staff but as firefighters. The article spoke of the commitment of senior managers to change the culture within the service. It recognised the historic machoism and the need to challenge sexist attitudes amongst crews. The article stated that early feedback had been very positive and HR were committed to rolling the training out across all stations. Where was this? The London Fire Brigade. The very same fire brigade now subject of an independent report revealing damning and damaging endemic levels of misogyny, racism and bullying.
The wider significance of this for all large organisations is to question the impact of awareness training. To ask whether senior managers are in touch with the reality of the culture in their organisation. To yet again challenge the , “it’s just a few bad apples” attitude. To reflect on the recruitment process, how are people with these attitudes getting into the service? And crucially why are line managers not challenging this behaviour?
It shouldn’t take a suicide to commission a rigorous review of the real experience of employees. The expert independent reviewers had no problem getting the 2000 employees they interviewed to talk about their experience in the service. What does this say about the effectiveness of the grievance process, the confidence employees had in HR and management and the willingness of trade unions to get involved in disputes between employees as opposed to between employees and managers? Clearly employee satisfaction surveys did not pick up on the widespread unhappiness and vulnerability of employees subject to misogyny, racism and bullying.
So now everyone knows just how bad it is. Further evidence that simply recruiting more women and greater numbers of people from ethnic minorities is not enough. No doubt there are those who saw success as achieving recruitment targets. At the same time some of those on the front line resented people they felt were appointed simply to meet such targets and determined to make their lives as unpleasant as possible so they would leave.
There is no simply solution to a problem this big. But a good start would be to give those 2000 employees who spoke of their experience to the independent reviewers a real voice Empower them to be the drivers of change. For the rest of us this is a wake up call to be proactive.
Blair Mcpherson former Director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
