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Adopting the definition in Thomas and Norris (2021), a professional is a person involved in an activity/work which demand a specific education qualification, capacity development, skills and knowledge. For example, Doctors who are professionals apply medical knowledge and skills for managing people and workplace initiatives for earning living. Further, they operate under a body managing their conduct and attitudes which is evidenced by their embrace of ethics.

People Professional

To define the people professional, the CIPD HR Professional Map (CIPD, 2023) which is a benchmark of people practice professionals is applicable. It identify their practice as being guided by core behaviours, professional values, core and specialist knowledge. The people professionals are actively engaged in demonstrating ethics, working with mutual respect for all, providing high-level standard, integrity, assuming responsibilities, inclusive working and trust-based practiced. Further, in professional values category, this entail principles-led, evidence-based and outcomes driven.

Also, in Fitzgerald (2020), people professionals are also guided by principles and belief in change. This is by relying with evidence for making decisions as opposed to reliance of anecdotes and wisdom. This is with people professionals appreciating on business (core knowledge) and people practice (specialist knowledge). The identified types of knowledge are essential for individuals and organisation development (see figure 1 summary);

Figure 1: Summary of the CIPD Profession Map

Source: (CIPD, 2023)

For the professional behaviours, these include;

Ethical practice– People professionals are tasked with the responsibility of embracing ethics in their active operations. Ethics ensure that the organisations are operating within diff3rent principles and the embrace of values governing organisation practice and business conduct amongst the management and the employees. This is through pursuing appropriate professional standards.

Valuing people– People professionals are mandated with a responsibility of balancing their priority, compassionate and fair-based support of all people working in the same business environment (CIPD, 2023).  Valued people are in a position of providing more input since they feel high respect, listened to and valued by the rest.

For activities, these are;

L&D– People professionals are tasked with a role of implementing skills gap analysis I organisation and for designing L&D strategies to empower staff for possessing particular knowledge, skills and performance increase. This is implemented to offer relevant training courses, online learning, mentorship and development activities (CIPD, 2019).

Organisation Design– This is noted in CIPD (2023) as core factor leading to the success of an organisation operations. The people professionals are tasked with a role to influence their practices and shape their results as core area in being a successful practitioner.

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Ethical values are identified to include the moral principles guiding people professionals in various phenomenon encountered. According to CIPD (2023a), in CIPD HR Professional MAP, ethical values represent principles which are moral compass for pursuing right decisions in practice. The manner in which people practice professional achieve decision making is critical for entities since bad decisions impact reputation. Therefore, ethical values assist in making choices guided by appropriate principles and moral values.

Examples of Ethical Values

Integrity– This defines people professionals truthfulness to their words and activities (Leicht-Deobald et al., 2022). For my practice, integrity ensure I do not compromise my values even in an event it entail making hard decisions. In my assigned roles in different job roles, I guarantee honesty to myself, leadership, colleagues and my clients. In line with performance feedback obtained, all people note my behaviours are in alignment with my beliefs. Evidencing integrity ensure that I maintain trust-based relations while harnessing positive relations with the rest. This has assisted me in improving my overall performance which assist me in being promoted.

Working inclusively– A major professional value I possess is working inclusively. According to CIPD (2023b), this ethical value include prioritising on all people interests, their need and to listen to them. In my role working in different discussions, I ensure I am listening to all individuals views and opinions and later offering constructive feedback. For example, in the course of my operations, when colleagues approach me in my functions, I make attempts in sourcing solutions for assisting them. This ethical value is important for assisting them in working in collaboration, building a high-level trust relations and achieving a common-based purpose working in a team-work basis.

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It is a common requirement for the people practice professionals to possess the relevant courage for contributing confidently in distinct workforces. According to CIPD (2023c), in the CIPD HR Professional Map, people professionals are supposed to possess relevant professional courage for challenging resistance forms and opposition of the others. Since the discussions are comprised of various teams working in collaboration, individuals possess varying perspectives and have a likelihood of resisting/disagreeing. The people practice professionals are supposed to be courageous in speaking up in an event things are not appropriate and providing timely solutions (CIPD, 2023d). Considering my practice in my current organisation, at all times I ensure I manage group engagements/discussions where I use the confidence I possess in sharing messages to all. I similarly adopt courageous resolving of conflicts in an event individuals are in disagreement to their ideas which are provided.

Informed, Clear, and Engaging Discussions

Guaranteeing the existence of an informed, clear and engaging discussion represent the primary objective of entire team members. In the process of pursuing group discussions/engagement, I make sure I pursue an informed process by utilising appropriate communication skills (Grant & O’Connor, 2019). Through an embrace of confidence, this offer me with an opportunity to concisely and with clarity support all team members. Prior enrolling in a particular discussion, my considerations would entail guiding all on the group agenda by sharing text messages, group discussions and emailing all team. Further, through enhancing the courageous discussions, leverage on an effective communication has assisted me in sharing overall experience and guaranteeing their validation successfully.

In order to ensure a discussion pursued is clear, I tend to integrate different factors including the volume, tone of language used, listening skills, concise summary offered, skills for presenting content and aligning a content with audience features (Lemon, 2019). I possess an elaborate understanding that all people leverage on distinct approaches of learning owing to psychological issues and cultural norms and what they expect. For the purpose of accommodating entire team’s needs, the responsibility of the people professionals entail adopting to presented content which are suitable for all people needs. This entail sharing significant language, application of high-contrast textual, summary of content and clarification of points while ensuring I listen to the communication of other teams.

Considering engagement to discussions, I use the noted skill to ask questions and provide timely feedback, sharing stories and using breaks in midst of discussions in my practice. I intend to make sure all people have a chance for posing questions and gaining feedback which is timely from all. Further, by sharing experiences and giving storis is similarly a main area of coming up with discussions of high-level engagement.

a) where you consider something to be unethical (whether or not it is illegal), 

b) where you believe something contravenes legislation

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Working in my current organisation, the management had come up with a policy requiring the employees to be based/located in a particular location. This was a policy favourable to local people and the employees/workers based in a particular organisation geographical positioning. This was a policy conflicting with legislations such as Equality Act 2010 which makes it against the law to discriminate people of different ethnicities (Sánchez-Monedero et al., 2020). As part of recruitment and selection, the employees with an interest to apply for a job but found living in different locations were in a disadvantage of being considered. This is a major discrimination which affected the scope of their performance in their roles. The identified policy in my organisation was conflicting with the identified legislation (Equality Act 2010). From a general context, the legislation is used in protecting occurrence of any form of discrimination. A majority of the employees tend to have a disconnect with this policy but with fears of highlighting this issue to the management teams.

How to Raise the Issue

Considering I was significantly impacted by this policy, I preferred highlighting the issue in an informal manner with employer. At the start, I felt nervous pertaining to highlighting on this issue. However, my employer was ready to resolve issues in workplace promptly with zero consideration of the formal approach. I had a strong confidence to talk to different employers since my workplace has put in place a policy encouraging all people to speak up on the issues impacting them. According to ACAS findings, the informal chats with different employers could be raging from quietly speaking up or use of a well-structured meeting/engagement (ACAS, 2023). After making sure I speak up with all the employers, they made an invitation to me to share an engagement for sharing entire concerns. Considering I was the key individual who had pointed out about the issue, I made preparations which I can note for example explained all people unhappiness with policy and evidencing that this policy was conflicting with legislations and ethical practice. In the verge of this meeting, I made an explanation of the issues which had been faced and making suggestions which explain what need to be pursued.

The different alternatives towards highlighting on the issue in workplace entail using different suggestion boxes, survey, employee representatives and whistleblowing. In an event the employees have fears of communicating in a direct manner to their employees, they could prioritise on dropping down a messaging in suggestion boxes, making responses to surveys which are shared and engaging various representatives. The legislation facilitates whistleblowing in an event informal strategies have failed in their roles (Marcum & Young, 2020).

Example of unethical issue– Manipulating pay required for reimbursement by an organisation.

Breaching ethical code– In my work in MNGHA, post-COVID, the employees were provided with an opportunity for remote working. My organisation had assumed a full charge to facilitate and support the remote working practices. The support scope involved internet connection subscriptions, renewing systems (Microsoft 365 and Zoom). It was expected that the overall costs of operations would substantially increase. A manipulation of what needed to be paid was evident by some of the employee. Taking money by false pretence by the employees is an unethical issue.

Procedure to raise the issue

·      Engaging senior management for a meeting

·      Documentation of the issues raised in form of bills, suspicion

·      Harnessing a professional-based approach

·      Setting the communication approach to be adopted in managing unethical practices

Short references should be added into your narrative below. Please remember to only list your long references in the reference box provided at the end of this section. Word count: Approximately 400 words