Civil Service Working Together Behaviour Guide
Working Together can look like the easiest behaviour to evidence, but saying you are a team player is not evidence. Panels want a real situation where you built a relationship, shared something useful, handled a difference of view or supported a colleague, and what followed. This guide explains what the behaviour asks for in plain words, how the expectation rises from AA and AO up to Director General, what strong written evidence looks like, the common mistakes, and how to use STAR or STARR.
What does Working Together really ask for?
It asks how you build and use working relationships to get things done, within your team and beyond it. That includes listening properly, asking for and offering help, sharing knowledge, and taking account of other people's wellbeing and needs. It also includes making it clear that bullying, harassment and discrimination are unacceptable, which appears in the descriptors at every grade.
It is not the same as being agreeable. At higher grades you are expected to challenge assumptions and compromise when that helps progress.
How does the expectation change from AA and AO to the Senior Civil Service?
The wording below paraphrases the official descriptors. Read the full text for your target grade.
- At AA and AO, you contribute to the whole team's work and stay open to new roles, build supportive relationships, listen to other perspectives and check understanding, ask for help and support others, and are aware of your own and colleagues' wellbeing.
- At EO, you develop contacts outside your own team and share knowledge, listen with genuine interest, contribute to an inclusive environment, support colleagues who need help, and change ways of working to improve cooperation within and between teams.
- At HEO and SEO, you encourage joined up teamwork inside and across groups, build professional relationships with a range of stakeholders, invest time in a common focus and team spirit, put wellbeing support in place and actively seek input from diverse backgrounds.
- At Grade 7 and Grade 6, you build and maintain a network for shared objectives, challenge assumptions while being willing to compromise, show genuine care for colleagues, support wellbeing across the team and stay approachable and receptive to new ideas.
- At Deputy Director level (SCS1), you proactively build and promote a strong network across and beyond the organisation, embed an inclusive culture, ensure support for everyone's wellbeing, set clear expectations that bullying, harassment and discrimination are unacceptable, and encourage sharing of knowledge and resources across boundaries and engagement with delivery partners.
- At Director and Director General level (SCS2 and SCS3), you drive an inclusive and collaborative culture, confront issues and challenge assumptions at the highest levels in an assertive yet constructive way, build diverse professional relationships across government and with Non-Executive Directors, and improve governance at board level for the wider good of the Civil Service.
What does strong evidence look like?
Strong evidence shows specific joint working and what it achieved. These examples are plausible illustrations with invented details, not real cases.
Example at EO. "Our team and the finance team kept sending each other duplicate requests. I arranged a short call with my counterpart, learned how their process worked, and agreed a single shared template. Duplicate requests stopped and both teams saved time."
Example at HEO. "A new project needed input from three teams who rarely spoke. I met each team lead to understand their priorities, set up a fortnightly check-in and a shared tracker, and asked quieter team members for their views. The first milestone was met on time."
Example at Grade 7. "Two partner organisations disagreed with our plan for a shared service. I drew on contacts I had built over the previous year, tested my own assumptions with them, and agreed to drop one of my proposals in return for shared data standards. That compromise unblocked the programme."
Illustrative example at Deputy Director. "Two directorates and an external delivery partner were blaming each other for delays. I built a regular forum with senior leads from each, challenged my own team's assumptions in front of them and agreed shared data. The partner began raising problems early."
What are the common mistakes?
- Right behaviour, wrong level. Helping a colleague is good AO evidence but too small for Grade 7 or SCS level, where the panel expects networks, challenge and compromise, and a collaborative culture.
- Team actions instead of your own. "We collaborated" never shows what you specifically did.
- Duties instead of outcomes. "I work closely with several teams" describes your job, not a result.
- Only agreeable stories. If there was no difference of view, no challenge and no compromise, the example may feel thin, particularly at higher grades.
- Ignoring wellbeing and inclusion. These feature in every set of descriptors, so a purely task focused example can lose marks.
How do you evidence it with STAR or STARR?
Use the Situation to show why joint working was needed, such as a gap, a clash or a shared goal. Make the Task your own responsibility, not the team's. Put most of your effort into Action, covering who you approached, how you listened, what you offered, what you gave up and how you handled disagreement. Close the Result with an outcome both sides would recognise. Reflection, the second R in STARR, is expected from SEO upwards, and it is worth adding below that grade if you can. At interview, a behaviour answer runs around five minutes spoken, so choose an example with enough substance to fill that time.
Strengths are different. They are assessed mainly at interview, are not named in adverts and are answered naturally rather than as STAR stories.
Where Koda fits
Koda helps you apply this to your own experience. It works from your real evidence and matches it to the role and grade, with nothing invented, and you stay in control of every word.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a personal or voluntary example for Working Together?›
Behaviour evidence is expected to come from work. A voluntary role can sometimes work if it is clearly relevant and the advert allows it, but a workplace example with colleagues or stakeholders is usually safer and easier for a panel to score.
How do I show Working Together when I mostly work alone?›
Look for moments where you depended on others or helped them, such as handovers, shared deadlines, requests for information or supporting a new starter. Describe your own actions and what changed. Even small joint working can be strong evidence at the right grade.
Is a disagreement needed for a strong example?›
Not always at lower grades, but a difference of view helps at higher ones. Grade 7 and Grade 6 descriptors mention challenging assumptions and compromise, and SCS descriptors expect challenge at the highest levels. If you have a real example where you listened, changed your position or found common ground, it is usually worth using.
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Official framework reference: Success Profiles on GOV.UK. Grade requirements and processes vary by campaign, so always follow the specific vacancy advert.