HR Professionalism: Career Development

 

HR Professionalism: Career Development

Twentieth century HR was influenced by three major shifts: from personnel to strategic HR, from domestic to global and from0 administrative to e-HRM (Claus, 2001) Throughout the years professionalism played a major part on the context of development of HR. Professionalism can be defined as “the process by which human resource professionals collectively strive to achieve the recognition and status that is accorded to the established professions by emulating or adopting the defining characteristics of the established professions. (Balthazard, 2014)

In 2013, the Human Resources Professionals Association asked the following question on its annual member survey “Do you agree that the professionalization of HR is, or should be, an important issue for the profession? 89.4% of respondents agreed with the statement. This represents as much agreement as one is ever likely to find on any question. (Human Resources Professionals Association, 2013).

What is professionalism?

A person who displays professionalism is difficult to define although we have all experienced people who don’t have it. Basically it is a person who has the right morals and core values and who works to the best of his or her abilities by always adhering to the laws and regulations. In simple terms HR specialists are ‘professional’ because they demonstrate expert knowledge in doing their work. However, one may define a professional vocation as one that grants members of its association the only right to practice their specialty.

Elements of  professionalism

·        A person who is paid for what he/she does

·        Expert and specialized knowledge

·        High quality work

·        Excellent manual / practical and literary skills

·        Exceptional ethics and behavior

Figure 1 Main elements of Professionalism

Source : Louisa Baczor and Ksenia Zheltoukhova at the CIPD, with contributions from Frances Gorka, CIPD

Your duty as a professional

·        To raise your hand and say, “I’ve made a mistake”

·        To raise your hand when you see risk

·        To resist the growth of at – risk behavior in yourself

·        To participate in generating learning from everyday experiences

·        To promote and display a positive culture within the team.

·        To absolutely avoid reckless conduct

Code of professionalism

Employees should act with integrity and in the interest of the workplace, exercising all reasonable professional skill and care to:

1. promote and maintain high levels of health, safety and security for others and themselves
2. maintain their competence and keep up with relevant technical and procedural advancements
3. only undertake or approve professional tasks for which they are competent
4. treat all persons fairly, without bias and with respect
5. encourage and assist others in their learning , competence and professional development
6. avoid harming the reputation or employment of others by false or malicious actions
7. perform to the best of their knowledge and abilities, keeping high standards of work
8. follow the specified procedures, regulations and law
9. accept appropriate responsibility for the work carried out by them or under their supervision
10. reject attempts from others to persuade them in any way to approve wrong procedures
11. reject bribery and never permit their judgments to be influenced by money or other personal gain
12. provide all information relevant to safety matters and acknowledge their errors
13. ensure that their decisions and actions are not adversely affected by their medical , physical and psychological condition (by factors such as fatigue ,fitness, alcohol, drugs, medication, stress, eyesight, hearing)
14. respect employer’s property

According to the Conference Board’s CEO Challenge 2013 Summary Report, human capital is now the top challenge CEOs identify, outscoring operational excellence and innovation (figure 1) .Which explains that the leaders has to maintain their professionalism in order to cope up with the employees and keep the human capital   

                                                            Figure 2 source : Conference Board (2013). CEO Challenge Summery Report,2013

Conclusion

Human resources management effectiveness within organizations depends heavily on the professionalism. It's important that employees, specially the managers should have the appropriate professional abilities in order to perform effectively at the organizational level. These skills in the area of human resources can be gained through relevant and important research and ongoing professional development. The area of skill competency of human resources managers and professionals is expanded by the development of a greater variety of activities related to human resource management.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNNHKZN_vYQ

References

Balthazard, C. (2014). The Professionalization of Human Resources Kingston, ON: Queens University IRC.

Chief Justice of Ontario Advisory Committee on Professionalism (October 2001). Elements of professionalism. Retrieved June 10, 2014 from the Law Society of Upper Canada web site: http://www.lsuc.on.ca/media/definingprofessoct2001revjune2002.pdf.

Claus, L. 2001. The future of HR, Workplace Visions, 6: 2-3. 9. Claus, L. 2003. Similarities and differences in human resource management in the European Union. Thunderbird International Business Review 45(6):729-755