Culture Doesn’t Build Itself (And No, It’s Not Just the Supervisor’s Job)

Healthy communications centers aren’t created by accident. They’re built one conversation, one decision, and one human being at a time.

Let’s talk about culture.

Not the inspirational quote taped to the breakroom wall. Not the mission statement tucked away in a handbook somewhere. And definitely not the “we’re a family here” speech delivered right before someone gets thrown under the bus.

I’m talking about the culture we actually LIVE in a communications center. The one we experience when we walk through the door, sit down at the console, ask a question, make a mistake, or have a really bad day.

A healthy culture doesn’t just happen. And it certainly isn’t one person’s job to create it.

It takes all of us.

We talk a lot about what’s broken. What about what’s working?

There’s no shortage of conversations about what makes working in a communications center difficult. The lack of support. The “mean girls”. The gossip. The cliques. The eye rolls. The passive-aggressive comments. The behaviors we’ve somehow allowed to become as routine as answering a 9-1-1 call.

We’ve heard the stories. Some of us have lived them.

And those experiences matter. We shouldn’t minimize them, excuse them, or slap a “that’s just how dispatch is” sticker on the problem and call it a day.

But here’s something I often ask: Do we talk enough about the centers that are getting it right?

The teams where people genuinely support one another. Where asking a question isn’t treated like a character flaw. Where a new dispatcher can learn without feeling like the entire room is waiting for them to fail.

Because those places exist. And we need to talk about them, learn from them, and work toward creating more of them.

Let’s make supporting each other the norm instead of the exception.

Where we can start…there is no expiration date on asking questions.

I don’t care if you’ve been in dispatch for two months, two years, or two decades. You should be able to ask a question.

Read that again.

Experience matters. Knowledge matters. Accountability matters. But none of those things should prevent someone from saying, “Hey, can you help me with this?”

The moment we make people feel foolish for asking questions is the moment we start teaching them to stay quiet. And in our line of work, silence can be a whole lot more dangerous than admitting you need clarification.

The same goes for training.

A CTO should absolutely correct a trainee. They should provide feedback, establish expectations, and make sure that person is developing the skills necessary to do the job safely and effectively.

But correction does not require humiliation.

We are not trying to prove that someone doesn’t belong in dispatch. We are trying to help them become capable of doing the job.

The world needs more dispatchers, you hear that from all of us at FCR all the time. We need good people who want to learn, grow, and serve their communities. If someone has the potential to succeed, our job is to help them get there, not make the journey unnecessarily miserable.

Imagine a trainee surrounded by people who want them to succeed. A trainer who provides honest feedback. A partner who answers a question without making a production out of it. A room that recognizes progress instead of only pointing out mistakes.

That trainee learns more than how to take or dispatch a call. They learn that they are part of a team. They learn that asking for help is okay (insert your wellness plug here). And eventually, they become the experienced dispatcher who does the same for someone else.

That is culture. And that’s a culture most people would want to be part of.

Healthy culture doesn’t mean everyone gets along all the time.

Let’s clear something up: a good culture does not mean everyone likes everyone, agrees on everything, or spends every shift holding hands and singing Kumbaya between calls.

We’re human. We have different personalities, different perspectives, different communication styles, and different levels of patience…especially when we’re tired, short-staffed, and running on caffeine and questionable meal choices.

Disagreements will happen. Frustration will happen. Bad days will happen.

The difference is what we do next.

In a healthy culture, bad behavior gets addressed. Not just when a supervisor witnesses it. Not just when it involves someone we don’t particularly like. And not just when it becomes so disruptive that ignoring it is no longer an option.

It gets addressed because it matters, regardless of who is responsible or how uncomfortable the conversation might be.

Yes, even when it’s your friend. Even when it’s the senior dispatcher everyone is afraid to challenge. Even when it would be much easier to stare at your screen and pretend you didn’t hear what just happened.

Looking the other way is easy. Addressing the behavior takes courage.

But what kind of environment are we creating when everyone sees the problem and nobody is willing to say anything?

We cannot demand respect while excusing disrespect. We cannot preach teamwork while allowing people to tear each other down. And we cannot expect a healthy culture to grow when we keep making exceptions for the very behaviors that damage it.

Accountability isn’t the enemy of a positive culture. It’s one of the things that protects it.

Sometimes support looks like giving someone a minute.

Not every difficult moment requires a speech, a coaching session, or a formal sit-down.

Sometimes, support looks like noticing that your partner is overwhelmed and asking, “Hey, you good?”

Sometimes it means offering to take a phone call, giving someone a few minutes away from the console, or helping them get caught up after a particularly rough stretch.

Sometimes it means recognizing that someone needs a quick debrief before moving on to the next call.

And sometimes it means stepping in before someone has to ask for help.

We work in an environment where people are expected to process difficult information, manage intense emotions, make decisions, and keep moving. Often, we do all of that while sitting three feet away from our coworkers, who may or may not have any idea what we’re carrying.

A little awareness can go a long way.

The goal isn’t to lower expectations or excuse someone from their responsibilities. It’s to recognize that people can be capable, committed professionals and still need a moment.

Supporting someone through a hard moment doesn’t make them weaker. It helps them keep going.

We should never make people feel guilty for needing the same humanity we would hope someone would show us.

“That’s how we have always done it” is not a life sentence.

Maybe your center has struggled with culture for years. Maybe the gossip is deeply rooted, the cliques are well established, and every attempt at change has been met with a collective eye roll.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Meg, that sounds great, but you don’t know MY center.”

You’re right. I don’t know every detail of your environment.

But I do know this: Just because something has been happening for a long time doesn’t mean it has to keep happening.

Culture is built through everyday choices. That means it can also be changed through everyday choices.

It changes when we stop participating in gossip.

It changes when we refuse to pile on when someone makes a mistake.

It changes when we offer help instead of criticism, ask questions instead of making assumptions, and address problems instead of feeding them.

It changes when dispatchers stop expressing frustration about the exact behaviors they themselves continue to repeat.

And it changes when we stop waiting for someone else to go first.

We can spend years waiting for a new supervisor, a new manager, a new policy, or a new administration to fix the environment. Leadership absolutely matters, and those with formal authority have a responsibility to set expectations and address harmful behavior.

But authority is not a prerequisite for influence.

You may not have the title, the stripes, or the office with the door. You may not be the person who gets to make the final decision.

You still have the ability to influence the people around you.

You can choose not to participate. You can speak up. You can encourage someone. You can model a different way of handling conflict. You can be the person who makes it just a little easier for someone else to walk through the door tomorrow.

We may not all have the same authority, but we all have the same potential to influence culture.

And when enough people make those choices consistently, things begin to change.

What are you contributing to in the room?

Here’s where the conversation gets a little uncomfortable.

It’s easy to identify what everyone else is doing wrong. We can list the people who gossip, the people who criticize, the people who make training miserable, and the people who seem to have mistaken the communications center for their own personal reality show.

But what about us?

Are we contributing to the environment we say we’re exhausted by?

Do we talk about supporting our coworkers while rolling our eyes when they ask for help? Do we demand patience from others but offer none ourselves? Do we complain about negativity while joining the conversation when the gossip starts?

None of us gets it right every single day. This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being willing to take an honest look at ourselves.

Because culture isn’t simply what we expect from other people.

Culture is what we are willing to participate in.

Every interaction is an opportunity to reinforce the environment we want or contribute to the one we claim we don’t.

And the little things count. Acknowledging someone’s effort. Welcoming a new employee. Giving constructive feedback privately. Checking on a coworker. Owning your mistake. Apologizing when you get it wrong.

None of those things requires a committee, a budget, or a five-year strategic plan.

They require intention.

Let’s make room for the good stories, too.

If you’re exhausted by your partner, your team, your work environment, or the feeling that you have to constantly protect yourself at work, that experience matters.

You deserve to be heard. You deserve a workplace where you can learn, ask questions, receive feedback, and do difficult work without unnecessary hostility.

And if you’re someone who genuinely loves this profession, loves the challenge, loves helping people, and feels supported by your team, that experience matters, too.

We need room for both truths.

There are dispatchers who dread walking into their centers, and there are dispatchers who walk in feeling fortunate to work alongside the people beside them. We should acknowledge the problems without losing sight of what’s possible.

We should share the stories of teams that support their trainees, supervisors who lead with accountability and compassion, and coworkers who consistently show up for each other.

Not because we’re pretending everything is perfect, but because we need examples of what good can look like.

A healthy culture isn’t about creating a perfect communications center. There will always be challenges, disagreements, staffing issues, difficult calls, and days when the coffee simply isn’t strong enough.

It’s about creating a place where people feel safe enough to speak up, supported enough to grow, accountable enough to improve, and valued enough to keep showing up.

The work is already hard enough

We answer calls from people experiencing some of the worst moments of their lives. We make decisions under pressure, manage competing priorities, and carry things home that other people may never fully understand.

The work is already a lot.

We don’t need to make it harder on each other.

A healthy culture is not one person’s responsibility, and it cannot be built through a motivational poster or a single leadership initiative. It takes the collective commitment of everyone who walks into that room.

It takes leaders who set expectations and follow through. It takes trainers who teach instead of intimidate. It takes experienced dispatchers who remember what it felt like to be new. It takes coworkers who notice when someone is struggling. And it takes each of us being willing to stop contributing to the very things we want to change.

So, the next time you walk into your communications center, consider this:

What can you do today to make it a better place to work?

Maybe it’s speaking up. Maybe it’s offering help. Maybe it’s refusing to join the gossip. Maybe it’s giving someone the grace to learn, or the space to recover after a hard call.

Whatever it is, start there.

Because culture isn’t built in one grand moment. It’s built in the ordinary moments we repeat every single day.

And when we commit to making those moments better for one another, we create something that reaches far beyond the walls of our communications center.

We create a team that can do difficult work, support the people doing it, and recover enough to come back and do it again.

The work is hard. The environment doesn’t have to make it harder. Let’s build a culture that helps people do this job well…and reminds them they don’t have to do it alone.

Because the world needs more dispatchers!