Culture at Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade

I have a really supportive team.

Everybody is kind and udnerstanding. I really enjoy the culture at my work place

I think this is pretty team dependent and manager dependent. My team has good culture however due to the nature of the work it can seem like we tend to work in a way that could be seen as unbalanced. However, we are empowered to communicate and share those frustrations and opportunities to improve.

I think it varies from floor to floor, but my floor lacks social connection. I am in a team that has two arbitrarily joined workstreams which don't interact with one another at all. It is also male dominated and I essentially only end up working with two people. There is no company culture outside of work hours that I'm aware of.

While there are many opportunities to meet with colleagues outside of work, the workplace would benefit from more at-work activities (such as table tennis, foosball table, or a weekly quiz competition). Cooperation within and between teams is very good and smooth, although the number of checks a piece of work has to go through before being finalised can be tedious.

Everyone is lovely, personable, very capable, and very interesting. You mostly bond with your age group/graduate cohort, rather than your team and there is a strong culture of overwork.

Overall, there is a good culture in my team and seems to be a pretty good culture in the wider ministry. There is a lot of collaboration between different areas of the ministry. Hierarchy structures are clear and prevalent throughout the ministry with a lot of different processes for approvals and checking. People are friendly and very willing to help which is nice. There is definitely a bit of a culture of overachieving and putting a lot of effort and care into ones work.

My workplace is highly structured, but at the team-level there is not a strong sense of hierarchy, and it is very peer focused. Unfortunately, senior leadership conversely feels like they are distant and poorly understood. Teamwork is exceptional, and everyone makes an effort to work accross a broad range of colleagues with different strengths. There is a lot of delegation, which is effective, but it also leads to slow communications and tasking, and a sense of managers and leaders performing sign-off functions as their primary day-to-day role. Socialising is strong within my cohort of graduates, who catch up daily for lunch, go to weekly pub quiz, and other out of work activities, I consider them friends. However, outside of my immediate cohort, long-time employees and those working in different areas are socially distant.

The people are lovely both inside and outside of work. MFAT worked very hard to build relationships among my cohort during our training block and it shows - we are all great friends. My team has been warm and welcoming to me as a new graduate with only part-time work experience. However, the hard-working culture sometimes veers into over-working.

The nature of our work can involve working long or inconvenient working hours but the organisation provides some flexibility. There is a positive workplace culture.

The Ministry's culture is based around doing good work well, without the corporate, money making angle. Everyone is dedicated to their work and wants to do well while retaining a co-operative and social working environment.

Extremely hierarchical structure. Teamwork, at least for me, is effective in my division. Overly high workload and pressure on grads and senior policy officers alike. Little time to socialise at work due to workload. Big expectations from the get go on employees. Over-time far too common.

Very passive aggressive, snobbish, do your time/get in line

The team I'm on are wonderful and I feel incredibly supported. There's plenty of scope for collaboration with different team members and even on solo work I spend a fair bit of time checking in with others/getting checked-in on. There's a fair bit of socialising as well, both within the team and along more lateral lines (my buddy has taken me for coffee with members of her cohort, for example, and I go hiking with my own on occasion). The company structure is generally excellent (I really appreciate that there's only PO1 (->SPO/LA)->UM->DM->DS in terms of line management rather than having a dozen ranks in between, if that makes sense?), and I've had the opportunity to talk to people across the whole of the wider group including the DM and Dept. Sec. Occasionally the hierarchy seems to be enforced very strictly, and inconsistently across teams.

Though it's not everyone there is a real competitive feeling here and many of the more senior members treat graduates with little to no respect. In certain conversations it feels like activities outside of sitting at your desk and working all day are frowned upon and the social side of the organisation needs to be navigated with caution.

Still quite ridged and old boy

Very hierarchical Some work place culture problems with bullying/harassments but this depends entirely on your team, most are great. People tend to be very extroverted and kind and often socialize together. You work closely in teams and will travel and spend much time together, so your colleagues become some of your closest friends. I'm always surprised at how many people know/like each other with such a big workplace.

After hours culture is appropriate- while there are occasional drinks, no one ever gets drunk and everyone remains professional. Very safe. In the office, I have heard other people have negative interpersonal comments flung around and there are some teams which don't give enough support to grads (leading to a sink or swim experience for some). The grad buddy program is very positive and helps with minimizing the risk of that, but you need a good buddy.

The organisation is quite hierarchical, often requiring you to meet with people at your level, and get things signed off by multiple managers. The teamwork is great, people are always willing to help out where need be, and open to answering any questions you have. The culture in my team is good, with Friday doughnuts or drinks, however, there could be more done. The organisation is currently working on a 'positive workplace culture' reshift.

Individuals who work together, rather than a true team environment - which is fine.