Hur kan vi göra en räddningstjänst för
alla?
How do we make the firestation work for all
Häslinger!
Dave Baigent
Yesterday, To Day, Tomorrow.
The ‘ups and downs’
“En brandstation för alla”
Absence of discrimination
A question of attitudes –
Putting the fire service in step with the rest of
Sweden
– Better working environment - physically and
psychosocially
– Saving lives in the best possible way
• Workplace that is “free from discrimination” where
“differences are an asset”
Something to build on
Last March.
– An improvement in
everyday life
– Different Climate
– Norms have changed
– More creative
– Topics have changed
– When I go home I can be
the same person - I do not
have to change
Why am I here?
I have an understanding of
what it is to be a brandman.
My experience in
researching and working
with the fire service.
This PowerPoint is a place
for debate not the answer
The answer is when
you decide
So let us talk about image
Lets talk about Kultur!
Brandman’s Kultur is about:
– Pride
– Teamwork
– Physical and Psychological Strength
– Ability to get a job done
– Competence that is constantly tested!
– Serving the public Som betjänar allmänheten
This is positive
Kultur that makes a good smokedivers!
Brandman’s Kultur – a mix
BRANDMAN’S
Identity
Firefighting
Male
Brandman’s Kultur – a mix
Union
Membership
Sexism
Sport
Homophobia
Strong
BRANDMAN’S
Identity
Firefighting
Racism
Fit
Male
Brave
Pornography
Firefighting
Anything
you like
Brandman’s Kultur – a mix
Fitting-in
Fire Fighting
Union
Membership
Image
Sexism
Image
Sport
Firefighting
Firefighting
Homophobia
Strong
Firefighting
Fitting-in
Fitting-in
BRANDMAN’S
Identity
Firefighting
Racism
Fit
Firefighting
Firefighting
Male
Fitting-in
Brave
Pornography
Firefighting
Image
Firefighting
Firefightin
g
Anything
you like
Image
Fitting-in
What does the MSB say about Kultur?
– Brandmen rely on working as a team
The rescue services as a workplace is characterised by a
strong unity and sense of camaraderie, but those who do
not ‘fit in’ risk being excluded (MSB 2009)
– Difficulties in changing a tradition
– The culture that upholds the extremely homogenous
workforce of the rescue services is a problem in itself,
partly when it comes to changing professional roles (MSB
2009)
Is change a threat to brandmen?
To be considered
• Moral/Democratic ideals not
at the top of brandmens'
value system.
• Brandmen like to be seen on
their fire engine.
• Brandmen construct an
identity around their work.
• Fit-in new people to be like
them.
• Change is a threat.
© Dave Baigent/Fitting-in Ltd
Men’s reaction to the ‘threat’ in the UK?
Very high levels of sexism
1996
– The UK fire service employs around 39,000 men and 139 (0.5%) women
– 63.9% of women indicate they have been sexually harassed (Baigent 1996)
Chief Inspector of Fire Service labels the organisation institutionally sexist
(HMCIFS 1999)
2007
Fire service employs around 31,000 men and 800 (2.5%) women
53.4% of women report they have been harassed (Baigent 2006)
Chief Inspector of Fire Service – “Not at the bottom of the league
but in a different league”
2010-13
New government starts to take equality off the agenda!
© Dave Baigent/Fitting-in Ltd
UK Government (2008) recognises the cultural
problems with employing women as brandmans
The data In the 12 months
preceding the survey: verbal
assaults (witnessed by 58%);
bullying and harassment (51%)
The use and distribution of
pornography (39%)
The witnesses “The boys’ culture is
deeply integrated [in the Service]
and it is disgraceful what goes on,
with explicit things (such as
pornographic) mags and talking.
And management allows it to go
on.”
We are talking about sexism
•
•
•
•
They way men behave to exclude women
The way men behave to fit-in other men
The way men behave to prove themselves
Power relationships at work/hierarchy both
formal and informal
– Simply about men keeping power
Culture can act as a barrier
Most men view the fire service as their job
• So what happens when things go wrong?
• When men get caught harassing women
– Men will close ranks
• Increase group solidarity
• Rumours identify the harasser as victim
• Stops women speaking out because of backlash
– Go back to basic sexist arguments
• Women are not strong enough
• Women cannot do the job
• Are these men sheep?
Let me introduce you to my tool kit
– The process of fitting-in
– The drip
– Spartacus
Fitting-In
The way peer group leaders organise and police:
– Themselves
– The group
– Newcomers
Most of us look for clues
We all know that in a new organisation we must fit-in
We look for clues about how to do this
We all know we will need to change a bit
–Here is a tip from two brandmen:
Mathias:
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 fit-in
Fitting-in with the team
A Brandman sums it up
There are sheep and there are shepherds, or a shepherd. And a lot
of people only see that way and anything that this person says is
always right.
Just overpowering..it’s hard to explain, ‘come on lets do this’ and it
just rolls. Starts, 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.
So who is your shepherd?
What snowball are you caught up in?
One räddningstjänsten – Two kulturer?
Formell kultur
• What the Chief Officer wants
• Formal or organisational culture
Informell Kultur
Values that one cohort of brandmen pass down to the next
• “The way we do things around here”
• What happens if someone doesn’t fit-in with “the way we
do things around here?”
• Who may not “fit-in?”
Some sheep don’t look like the others
Informal Culture/brandmans thinking
Brandmen organise their working environment and
operational duties around the way they currently do
their job -“the way things are done around here”
• Brandmen construct an image and identity around their work
• The public recognise this image and identity
• Helps create brandman’s heroic status
• Brandmans seen as special ‘men’
Change is therefore a threat
Employing women threatens traditional working
patterns, identity and image.
How do some men react to this
threat?
Stop women fitting-in!
– Subordinate and exclude women
– Do not share knowledge
– Silence, hostility, language, bullying, touching,
‘jokes’
– Close and punitive supervision
– Lack of support
– Stereotyping and different treatment
•
(Yoder 2001)
So what happens to women in the UK?
•
Being singled out to do difficult tasks on your own when it was group training.
•
Minor mistakes highlighted and being made a fool of in front of watch.
•
Colleague making things up to watch about things I did or didn't do on
fireground.
•
1st station ignored. Walked out of rooms etc. 2nd station - physically, verbally,
sexually harassed.
•
Inappropriate questions, conversations, magazines, language and comments
directed at women while I was around.
•
Belittling, sexual innuendo, preventing attending courses, shouting, swearing,
threatening behaviour,
•
Being told I was not putting my career in front of my family and this was wrong,
threat of no promotion because I was a mum
•
Intimidation, telling colleagues how I was no longer competent...
• A constant drip - A psychosocial environment that destroys
women
Stopping the drip
• How do you think the constant drip of hostility
and harassment can be stopped?
• What do women brandmen have to do?
• What do men brandmen have to do?
• What does the organisation have to do?
Stopping the drip
• How do you think the constant drip of hostility
and harassment can be stopped?
• What do women brandmen have to do?
• What do men brandmen have to do?
• What does the organisation have to do?
It’s not just you!
Harassment and Sexism
• Not just a British, European, American or Australian problem
• Internationally the fire service is sexist
• Wherever I go women tell me the same story. Unofficial support
• You can stop sexism?
• Saying you are not sexist is not enough!
• You have to be anti-sexist !
• Pro-active to stop ‘the drip’!
What happens when it goes wrong
•
•
•
•
People take fixed views
Return to early arguments
Physical skills – Competence
A ‘small incident’ becomes the voice of
resistance
• The truth disappears
• Stops women from speaking out
Harassment – what it does!
•
First caught in the headlights
• Constant drip of harassment (small things that destroy confidence)
• Women able to recognise what is happening
• Believe once men accept them the situation would improve
•
Still caught in headlights
• The drip continues
• Women develop coping mechanism
•
Still caught in headlights
• Doubting sanity
• Official complaint
• Women psychologically unable to continue
•
Could have been solved
• Any man in the group could have stopped ‘the drip’ but cultural
solidarity prevents them from speaking out
Backlash
Success is likely to provide a
backlash from men
–Many men do not accept the
argument about employing women
–Plan for the backlash!
© Dave Baigent/Fitting-in Ltd
Case Studies of four women who left the fire service
– Principal Manager
• challenged the culture just be being there
• marginalised by other principal managers throughout the fire service
• held her ground – worn down - took out a sexual harassment action – so
weakened settled out of court (including a silencing agreement)
– Watch Manager
• successful career
• promoted and not accepted by peers
• looked for help – unsupported by managers – took out sexual harassment
action - so weakened settled out of court (including a silencing
agreement)
– Brandman
• treated badly – stood out against the flow – weakened – took out sexual
harassment action – settled out of court (including a silencing agreement)
– Student
• harassed whilst on workplacement – kept secret – spoke out after she left
– will not now join the fire and rescue service
© Dave Baigent/Fitting-in Ltd
How are you going to deal with
harassment?
Send a clear message to the workforce
• Be pro-active
• Recognise and deal with incidents in the workplace
• Do not use a sledgehammer if it prevents women
from speaking out
Get brandman to stop ‘the drip’
Looking for answers –
•
Hardly any recognition of the problem outside of
traditional change management schemes
• Similar to the police, there is a tendency to deny sexism
• A sense of denial:
• A proud Fire Service solves its own problems
• Chief Officers and equality managers claiming that
sexism is history
• Brandmen saying “Its not like that anymore”
“En brandstation för alla”
• Absence of discrimination in human encounters and social interactions
between people
• A question of attitudes - The individual’s thoughts and emotional
attitudes, people’s attitudes and views
• “a welcoming staff that sees strength in having more women on their
shift.”
• a workplace that is “free from discrimination” where “differences are an
asset” and where “competency is what is important, not gender or origin”.
•
•
•
•
•
Create a qualitatively better service,
Promote democracy,
Contribute to a better working environment - physically and psychosocially
Promote prevention work and offers new insights into work
Bring brandmans away from the station to work alongside the public
Good Luck
• This PowerPoint is fully supported
Fitting-in is here to help
– Today
– Tomorrow
– And in the future
• Sweden is not that far away
• dave.baigent@fitting-in.com
• sarah.oconnor@fitting-in.com
• Visit us at http://www.fitting-in.com
The influence of watch managers
• Research has suggested that watch managers’ are
a key rank to managing these types of issues
• As watch managers in what way are you onside
• Have you observed these behaviours
• Did you respond?
–
–
–
–
Sometimes
Never
All the time
How do you manage these types of problems?
How do women behave
•
•
•
•
•
(a) indirect strategies include ignoring, joking about, and hinting that harassing behaviors are unwelcome;
(b) assertive strategies involve asking or persuading the perpetrator to desist, stating objections, and demanding
that the behavior stop; and
(c) aggressive strategies are defined by expressions of anger or hostility and threats.
(Gingham and Scherer 1993)
Internal strategies include detachment (aimed at minimizing the situation), denial, relabeling, illusory control (selfblame), and endurance (does nothing).
•
Internal responses reflect attempts to manage the cognitions and feelings associated with the harassing behavior.
•
Externally focused strategies include avoidance (avoid harasser), assertion/confrontation (make clear behavior is
unwelcome), seeking institutional/organizational relief (e.g., filing a complaint), social support (from significant
others), and appeasement (of the harasser). This latter category of responses reflects attempts to control the
harassing situation itself. Using either categorization detailed above, the conclusion that pervades this admittedly
sparse literature is that indirect, internal responses are used most frequently by women.
•
(Fitzgerald, Gold, and Brock 1990)
•
Reilly, Lott, and Gallogly (1986) found that 61% of harassed college students ignored or did nothing and only 16%
told the perpetrator to stop.
became, unfortunately, one of the guys. I mean I was treated a lot like the guys were, which ended up not doing me a
whole lot of good . . . it was nice because I was accepted . . . [but] I finally realized I was somebody that I didn’t
like.
•
At first I kinda got along with everybody, and then I found that after four or five years . . . I started having an
opinion and speaking up for some women’s rights things . . . once I started having a mind of my own, it’s like they
could not tolerate that in the least.
So how do we take down the fire walls
and ceilings that keep women out?
First you must recognise the problem
This is not just a simple matter of employing women!
Employing women is a direct challenge to the male culture:
– ‘the way things are done around here’
•
You must be anti-sexist !
• Raising awareness of how hostility and
‘otherness’ occurs in the fire service culture
• Having the right institutional processes to deal
with problems
• Having faith in the system – robust attitudes
of non tolerance from management
• CONSCIENCE raising works at the time but has
not ignited the spark that will take away
sexism
Stopping the bully
Moral argument
– fairness for all - ‘supported‘ by Union, Government and managers
– FAILED
Threats
– Strict discipline measures threatened
» Increases secrecy
» Drives harassment further underground
» Creates/increases group solidarity
» Culture identifies the harasser as victim
» Stops women speaking out because of backlash
Education
– Brandmen have received equality training
Outcome
– Brandmen learn how to hide their bad behaviour
Cultural change is slow!
© Dave Baigent/Fitting-in Ltd
So how do we take down the fire walls
and ceilings that keep women out?
First you must recognise the problem
This is not just a simple matter of employing women!
Employing women is a direct challenge to the male culture:
– ‘the way things are done around here’
•
You must be anti-sexist !
Take responsibility – you have set
the rules!
Performance management
•Monitoring and accountability
•Make managers responsible
•Make brandman accountable
•Carry out
•Impact assessments,
•Equality action plans,
•Auditing