Pipe up, by Dr Heather Smith

“A deeper understanding of the motivations for behaviour at work should inform training and development.”

We’ve known for a long time that tuition and coaching can only go so far in preparing professionals for the work environment and that amassing CPD hours, credits, and certificates does not of itself guarantee desirable conduct and habits. It is only recently that we’ve starting to understand much more about what other influences might be involved

There is a growing body of academic evidence indicating that a deeper understanding of the motivations for behaviour in the work environment should inform training and professional development curricula.

This is not a reason for wholesale change to training programmes but it is a case for learning more about the beliefs and mindsets that influence behaviour. The traditional causes of poor behaviours – bad habits, time pressure, lack of training, complacency, supervisory tolerance, etc – all have explanatory power. A matching understanding of how principles, beliefs, and even ethical stances influence actions in the workplace can only strengthen our ability to better align individual contributions with collective goals. Can we perhaps complement training on what to do with some consideration of why to do?

An arbitrary example of the link between the “why” and the “what” concerns our interpretation of the purpose of utilities. Most of the utility sectors were founded on a public service imperative to deliver common access networked infrastructure as a means of ensuring safe, efficient services. This principle is a way of thinking about not only a particular industry but also about what it means to be a part of that industry as a skilled professional. Most UK utilities have since shifted from the public to the private sector. Has this affected the “public service” mentality? Has it affected the motivation for certain types of behaviour among utility employees? Are such changes significant or important? The emerging evidence from social science research certainly suggests that disparities in our way of thinking about the role we have and the industry we work in can prompt undesirable behaviours.

Writings on organisational culture are dense with references to theories of behaviour and models for engendering change. However, we are still some way off being comfortable with our appreciation of why both good and poor behaviours are practiced. It would be careless to ignore the growing indications that, as well as helping colleagues understand what to do and how to do it, we should be paying attention to why they should do it.