Culture and behaviour: plain text
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From: Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation
- Published on: 2 April 2025
- Last updated on: 14 May 2025
- Organisation culture
- Leadership and culture
- Systems thinking
- Behavioural science
- Ethics
- Learning approaches
- Facilitation, coaching, consulting, mentoring
- Effective teams
- Enabling resilience
- Employee engagement
- Diverse employee voices
Understanding people's behaviour and creating the right organisation culture
Organisation culture
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
What culture is and why it’s important
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
What a positive culture looks and feels like and the different factors that contribute to culture
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
Different approaches to culture development and how to align people practices to culture
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
The impact that wider cultures have (e.g. country, sector) on building and shaping organisation culture
Leadership and culture
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
The role of leaders in organisation culture
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
How leadership behaviours can positively or negatively impact culture and how to assess them
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
How to evaluate, develop and improve leadership practices and behaviours to positively impact on organisation culture
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
How to embed and sustain effective and ethical leadership practices and behaviours at organisational level to shape culture
Systems thinking
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
What systems thinking is i.e. that an organisation is a whole system, and that your work and actions have an impact elsewhere
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
How people practices impact on behaviour, culture, systems and structures
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
How to apply a systems thinking approach to people practices
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
How to integrate systemic approaches to people strategy and the value it has on organisational performance
Behavioural science
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
What behavioural science is and why it's important
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
Key theories and findings from behavioural science (e.g. fight-or-flight response, thinking biases)
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
How to apply behavioural science to shape people practices and create the conditions in which people can thrive and perform
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
How to apply behavioural science to improve organisational performance and create value for all stakeholders
Ethics
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
What ethics is i.e. the standards and moral principles that govern behaviour and your organisations values and code of ethics
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
Different ethical perspectives i.e. honesty, fairness, equity, and how they influence your own values and decisions
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
Different ethical perspectives, and how different mindsets and values influence internal and external decision-making
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
Different ethical perspectives, mindsets and values, and how to assess their implications for organisation culture to inform strategy and mitigate risk
Learning approaches
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
That people learn and develop in different ways
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
Different ways of learning, different approaches to professional development, and how to apply them in everyday situations, including team settings
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
Emerging learning trends and theories, and how they apply to the ongoing development of people and needs of the organisation
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
Emerging learning trends and theories, and how to build learning into people strategies and align them with organisation priorities
Facilitation, coaching, consulting, mentoring
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
What facilitation, consulting, coaching and mentoring are
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
Different models of facilitation, consulting, coaching and mentoring, and when to use them
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
How to apply and adapt different models of facilitation, consulting, coaching and mentoring in a range of different situations
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
How to evaluate the value of facilitation, consulting, coaching and mentoring approaches to inform their use in delivering the people strategy
Effective teams
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
How to work effectively as part of a team
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
How to develop team relationships and ways of working together to enable performance
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
How to identify, tailor and advise on the right team model (e.g. project, scrum, multi-disciplinary, self-organising) for different situations, to enable sustainable team performance
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
How teamworking and team performance is shaped and enabled by organisation culture and environment, to drive sustainable organisation performance
Enabling resilience
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
Causes of stress and poor mental and physical health
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
The role of managers in preventing and managing stress of team members and the importance of empowering workers to develop resilience
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
How to enable a resilient workforce and a healthy working environment
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
How to create and sustain a resilient and healthy working culture
Employee engagement
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
How employee engagement impacts the way people feel at work
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
Basic theories of motivation, and the factors that affect employee engagement
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
How to apply different engagement approaches, and the drivers and enablers of engagement
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
How to create the right environment to engage workers, and drive organisation effectiveness through engagement
Diverse employee voices
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand:
The importance of listening to a diverse range of voices
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand:
Tools and methods to give a diverse range of people the opportunity to be heard
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand:
The relationship between culture and voice, and how to apply tools and methods that give a diverse range of people a voice
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand:
Different approaches to engaging diverse voices, and how integrating insights from these approaches create strategic value for people and organisations