Critical Skills: Professionalism

Overview

Within the context of critical skills, professionalism is defined as the level of excellence or competence that is expected of individuals in the workplace. Professionalism is described as a soft skill that is required of employees at all levels. It involves the willingness to cooperate with others and to communicate openly, despite differences in background, educational level, or social class. Professionalism is closely related to the concept of work ethic, and both professionalism and work ethic help to shape a company or agency’s reputation with others in the field as well as with clients, potential clients, the general public, and other stakeholders. The professionalism of a company head is integral to the style and organizational structure of any company or agency. When working closely with other individuals, the level of professionalism is closely associated with the ability of employees to act in a courteous and responsible manner while maintaining honest relationships.

Professionalism differs from work ethic in that the former requires going beyond basic requirements, while the latter involves reflecting the values of a particular company or agency. One example of good work ethic is performing tasks efficiently and effectively without sacrificing performance quality. Individual companies often generate a highly personalized code to guide professionalism and work ethic within a company. Those codes may reflect the personal or religious beliefs of the company founder or of the current head. Most codes of conduct rely heavily on the concepts of transparency, honesty, and integrity.

Businesses of all sizes must deal with competition from others in the field, and government agencies often walk a tightrope between politicians and the needs of their clients. Thus, professionalism plays a major role in defining the place of that particular company or agency within a given field. Professionalism and work ethic also help company or agency officials to ensure that the stated mission is more than mere words and that it is clearly understood by all employees. Problems may arise when the level of professionalism of an employee falls short of a company or agency’s requirements. However, good working relationships within a company, coupled with fair compensation of employees, often serves to motivate employees to improve their level of professionalism and helps them to adhere to particular work ethics.

Core Skills & Competencies

While no single definition of professionalism exists, there are core elements that are generally understood to be involved. These concepts include accountability, consideration, humility, communication, tidiness, and consistency. The concept of accountability focuses on employee actions such as performing assigned tasks, reporting for work on time, and carrying out particular goals and the overall mission of a company or agency. Incomplete tasks and poor performance demonstrate a lack of willingness to be accountable, and such behaviors often produce consequences. Professionalism also requires employees to admit to mistakes and use their failures to learn how to improve their job performance. Accountability applies to both the individual and to the responsibilities of the company or agency. Business profits and agency success are often dependent on the ability of employees to accept joint responsibility for attaining stated goals. Employers have been innovative in identifying ways to increase workplace accountability, using biometric devices, time and attendance software, goal frameworks, and team incentive programs as well as prioritizing tasks and monitoring work progress.

Professionalism also requires consideration for others. The concept of consideration denotes basic kindness and thoughtfulness and keeping the needs of others constantly in mind. Consideration is based on the concept of the Golden Rule, which underlies the legal system of many countries and serves as a core belief for many faiths. It involves treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself. The most respected professionals tend to be those who view themselves as a single part of a greater whole, understanding that the whole functions well only when each part performs its assigned function. Putting consideration into action may involve small acts such as letting others know one’s availability for meetings or rescheduling a meeting to avoid a colleague’s conflict. Consideration in the workplace also involves open communication with others and understanding their needs.

Humility is also integral to true professionalism. Humility involves admitting that no individual knows everything and acknowledging that colleagues are of equal value to a company or agency’s ultimate success. Humility encompasses the notion that learning is an ongoing process and that individuals can learn by seeking advice, listening to others, admitting mistakes, apologizing when necessary, and being open to the fact that new ideas may offer better solutions to a problem than an old one. It requires that the focus remain on what is good for the company and not just for individual careers.

The level of professionalism present in the workplace is often dependent on the ability of employees to engage in open communication. That communication may be one-on-one, or it may involve large or small group meetings. Communication also encompasses traditional methods such as telephone calls, letters, and memoranda as well as technologies such as e-mails, text messages, and voice mail. A lack of communication can lead to decreased work productivity, resulting in a loss of profits. It may also contribute to low job satisfaction, leading to increased absenteeism and high turnover of workers.

The concept of tidiness encompasses both aesthetic and practical elements. Employees appear more professional when they dress neatly and appropriately, and a clean workplace is more pleasing to employees as well as to visitors. Furthermore, tidiness may help to prevent accidents on the job that lead to lower productivity, more absenteeism, blemishes on a company’s safety record, and potential lawsuits.

Overall, the concept of professionalism encompasses the notion of rational work behavior. Thus, it promotes an environment of mutual trust and respect while furthering the mission and goals of a company or agency.

Research & Theory

Researchers have identified three major phases of professionalism. After initially defining professionalism as an occupational value, second-stage researchers concentrated on professionalism chiefly as an ideology that was particular to a company or agency. Ultimately, researchers recognized the value in combining the approaches to examine professional from both normative and ideological perspectives. As globalism increased, British and American researchers became increasingly concerned with studying the impact of professionalism on governments with low levels of centralization and its influence on the ways companies from those countries worked with private enterprise and with countries with greater levels of centralization.

In Britain, early research on professionalism concentrated on its ability to ensure stability and civility within the existing social system. One of the first researchers to study professionalism was economist and historian Richard Henry Tawney, who in 1921 began maintaining that professionalism could be used to convince individual employees to act in the interests of the broader community. In 1933, in their book The Professions, Alexander Carr-Saunders and P. A. Williams became the first researchers to argue that the promotion of professionalism could help to mitigate some of the dangers posed by rapidly increasing industrialization and the growth of large government bureaucracies. Early British researchers believed that professionalism within both the practitioner-client and the practitioner-management relationships was dependent on trust in employee competencies gained through accepted channels such as education, training, and licensing.

In the United States, early research reflected the work done by British researchers. Talcott Parsons, a Harvard sociology professor, was one of the first American researches to link professionalism with both capitalism and the rational-legal social order. Parsons’ work was harshly criticized because he argued that professionalism and functionalism were linked. In the 1960s and ’70s, Eliot Freidson, a New York University sociologist and an expert in the study of professions, reexamined Parsons’s work, recognizing the validity of Parsons’s belief that professionalism could legitimately be used to improve public services whenever work quality is threatened by cumbersome laws and excessive bureaucracy.

By the 1970s, researchers had become increasingly critical of existing literature on professions, arguing that the claim of professionalism had been used to justify the promotion of self-interest among large and powerful companies. The interpretation of professionalism as a normative or occupational value continued to lose favor. During the 1970s and 1980s, professionalism was elaborated on by M. S. Larson in The Rise of Professionalism (1977) and by Andrew Abbott in The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (1988).

From the mid-1980s onward, researchers such as Robert Dingwall, a coauthor of Sociology of the Professions: Doctors, Lawyers, and Others (1983), were critical of what was identified as extreme professionalism. By the 1990s, the link between professionals and customer or client satisfaction had been well established, and most researchers recognized that social systems benefited from professionalism.

In 2014, British sociologist Julia Evetts found that within the contemporary workplace, professionalism has become increasingly important in a variety of situations. She suggests that additional research and more in-depth analysis is needed to fully understand the different aspects of professionalism. Bill Bordass and Adrian Leaman, experts in professionalism within the building industry, argue that professionalism is constantly threatened by such aspects as frequent turnovers, extensive bureaucracies, and the tendency to outsource technical work.

Research undertaken in the twenty-first century suggests that the loss of professionalism has led to a greater dependence on accountability. These changes may be simply a reflection of what is happening in society at large. Many researchers feel that the need to refrain from interfering in the free market has resulted in an emphasis on rules and regulations as opposed to a focus on ethics.

Bibliography

Bachman, Leonard R. "New Professionalism: The Post-Industrial Context." Building Research and Information. 41.6 (2013): 752–60. Print.

Billett, Stephe, Christian Harteis, and Hans Gruber. International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-Based Learning. New York: Springer, 2014. Print.

Evetts, Julia. "Professionalism: Value and Ideology." Current Sociology 61.5–6 (2013): 778–96. Print.

Hall, Ashley and Judith Biss. "Teaching Professionalism for the Workplace: The Role of Attitude, Dress, and Communication Skills." Business Education Forum 70.2 (2015): 33–49. Print.

Kanes, Clive. Ed. Elaborating Professionalism: Studies in Practice and Theory. New York: Springer, 2010. Print.