The importance of professionalism at work

PROFESSIONALISM does not mean just wearing a suit, leading a team, or obtaining an advanced academic degree.

It entails expressing the values of responsibility, integrity, excellence, and accountability, at all times, because all jobs across different industries will always require one thing for you to advance and move ahead in your career: a high degree of professionalism and ethical behavior.

Over the course of our careers, most of us will move through different roles, with each emphasizing a different set of skills, and understanding, developing, and applying positive professional attitudes will always make it that much easier to coordinate tasks and teams smoothly, while also being able to always seek out new ways to become more efficient and bring value to the organization.

The Inquirer Academy will be hosting a one-day public workshop titled “Developing an Attitude of Professionalism: Values and Skills for Success” on June 28.

This highly interactive and hands-on program is designed to develop participants from the “inside out,” by establishing and creating a secure inner being, so that the outer projection becomes a natural reflection of his or her personal development, values and attitudes.

The program facilitator, Lia Bernardo, believes that this combination of different attitudes and qualities can easily be developed and adopted.

She shares some of her thoughts on these everyday skills below:

Why should we want to develop our professionalism?

Professionalism in the workplace is about respect and service. I think that in today’s workplace, the attitude of professionalism is becoming increasingly less present. We must create respect, trust, service, consideration, objectivity within, so that the attitude conveys this naturally and effortlessly.

In your experience, which are the most common negative attitudes at work?

I would put indifference and lack of respect for boundaries and personal space, as well as gossiping high on the list.

People generally just want to be happy, so if we create the right environment, everything else will follow.

This environment is created through a lot of personal growth and development.

For companies, how will providing training on these values and skills improve or bring value to the business?

I believe that when people working for the company are happier, then it just naturally improves business, so companies really ought to be able to create an environment wherein this is possible.

Stress, burnout, and long work hours are not going to make a business flourish—it will turn those that work for you into robotic and frustrated people, leading to a negative attitude toward work.

Does having these attitudes hold value even when outside the workplace?

Having a good attitude is essential to anyone’s well-being whether in or out of the office.  That attitude can be cultivated, but only by you and for you.

Bernardo is working toward her PhD in Psychoneurology and Integrative Health from Beurin University in California.

She has earned certifications as a ThetaHealing, FlorEssence and Millennium Method practitioner, and is an Usui Reiki master teacher and healer.

She enjoys sharing her knowledge and experiences so that others may grow, learn, and create, as she focuses on personal growth, development and empowerment. She seeks to challenge participants to become confident, professional, and motivated individuals. These outcomes are then reflected in their manner of relating to each other, as well as both internal and external customers.

The course is appropriate for young professionals or anyone seeking to learn about and develop the values of professionalism at work.

Anyone from fresh graduates to senior executives can benefit from (re)examining themselves and their characters, further developing their innate emotional quotient and discovering how they can maximize their unique strengths and potentials.

The Inquirer Academy is at 4168 Don Chino Roces Ave. corner Ponte Street, Makati City.

For more information about this or any future programs, you may email [email protected], call (632) 8341557 and look for Jaime Leogardo, or visit the website at www.inquireracademy.com.