Working Together is the Civil Service behaviour about building effective relationships and partnerships with people inside and outside your immediate team. Strong evidence shows that you listen to different perspectives, share information and resources, support colleagues and help people work towards a common outcome.
This behaviour is not simply “I work well in a team”. The assessor needs evidence of what you personally did to improve collaboration, deal with different views, involve the right people and help the group deliver. The standard becomes broader as the grade rises.
The current Civil Service Success Profiles behaviour guidance sets out the expectations at each grade.
What Working Together means
A strong Working Together example usually contains a genuine collaboration challenge. Perhaps teams had different priorities, information was being held in silos, a stakeholder relationship had broken down or the group needed to combine expertise to achieve an outcome.
Your answer should show how you built relationships and created a common focus. Listening matters, but so does action: sharing information, adapting ways of working, resolving tension, bringing in missing perspectives and making sure people feel valued and able to contribute.
At senior grades the evidence should extend beyond being a helpful colleague. HEO and SEO examples should normally show joined-up working across groups and professional stakeholder relationships. Grade 7 and Grade 6 examples should show networks, constructive challenge, compromise and an inclusive environment that supports shared objectives.
What the behaviour looks like by grade
| Grade | What strong evidence should show |
|---|---|
| AA / AO | Contribute proactively to the team, build supportive relationships, listen to different perspectives, ask for help when needed and support colleagues. |
| EO | Build contacts outside your own team, listen genuinely, create an inclusive environment, support colleagues and change ways of working to improve cooperation. |
| HEO / SEO | Encourage joined-up working across teams, build professional stakeholder relationships, share information and resources, create common focus and actively seek diverse perspectives. |
| Grade 7 / Grade 6 | Build and maintain networks around shared objectives, challenge assumptions constructively, compromise where useful, support wellbeing and create an inclusive environment where different views are heard. |
Choosing a strong example
Choose an example where cooperation materially affected the outcome. Good examples include cross-team delivery, repairing a difficult relationship, bringing specialists together, resolving conflict over priorities or changing a process so teams could work together more effectively.
Avoid examples where everybody agreed from the beginning and the only evidence is that you attended meetings. The strongest stories contain different needs or perspectives and make your personal contribution to the collaboration obvious.
Working Together 250 word statement
For a 250 word statement, establish the shared objective quickly. Then explain who needed to work together, what made that difficult and what you personally did to build cooperation. Use most of the word count on your actions rather than describing the team.
Finish with evidence that the collaboration improved the outcome: faster delivery, better quality, stronger stakeholder support, fewer hand-off problems or a measurable improvement in team performance.
Working Together example
The existing example below is worth retaining because it gives a concrete Working Together scenario rather than relying on generic statements about being a team player.
Working Together interview questions
Typical Working Together questions include:
- Tell me about a time you had to work with another team to achieve an outcome.
- Describe a time you had to build a relationship with a difficult stakeholder.
- Tell me about a time people in a group had conflicting priorities.
- Give an example of when you changed your way of working to improve cooperation.
- Tell me about a time you supported a colleague or team that was struggling.
- How do you make sure different perspectives are heard when a team is making a decision?
- Describe a time you helped create a more inclusive team environment.
Common mistakes
- Saying you are a team player without giving evidence.
- Describing what the group achieved but not what you personally did.
- Choosing an example with no disagreement, dependency or collaboration challenge.
- Ignoring difficult views instead of showing how you handled them.
- Using a senior-grade example that never goes beyond your immediate team.
Find an example for your grade. Select the level of the job you are applying for. These examples show different levels of responsibility, so tailor the evidence and decisions to your own experience.