A professional comes from a profession. According to ACP (2022) a profession is a disciplined group of people adhering to ethical standards and holding themselves out as and accepted by public as having special knowledge and skills. This is in a broadly recognised body of learning obtained from research, education and training at high level. They are also found to be ready in applying the knowledge and exercising the skills for the interest of the rest. Therefore, a professional is a person deriving income from specified knowledge and experience. Their work is regulated by professional bodies identified in Swann et al. (2021) as oversighting their knowledge, skills, conduct and practice of the specific profession or occupation. For instance, nurses are regulated by Nurses Regulation Union with UK doctors working under National Health Service (NHS).

People Professional Meaning

Considering the CIPD HR Professional Map, a people professional is defined in CIPD (2022) as ‘supporting vision and goals of an organisation by great people interventions’. This is since entities are comprised of people, they play a main function of empowering their organisations in thriving personally and in a collective basis. With their different roles varying, the reasons for becoming a people professional is as summarised in figure 1;

Figure 1: Summary of being a people professional

Further, in line with the CIPD HR Professional Map, a people professional is defined by possess personal values (Sezer et al., 2019). These are identified as including;

Fairness- As evidenced in CIPD HR professional map core behaviours, fairness entail an equal or impartial treatment of the rest equally despite of having differences in age, race, gender, religious and more protected characteristics (CIPD, 2017). For my role, I ensure that all people/stakeholders in my organisation are managed with fairness and not discriminated.

Honesty- According to CIPD (2022a) the people professional actions and behaviours ought to be defined with high-level honesty. This is by operating within set legislations, rules which lead to unintended outcomes. As a people professional, I own up to any mistake I make and take the blame.

Exclusivity- This is defined in Forbes (2018) as a requirement where people professionals need to dedicate themselves fully to their organisation. The outcome of this is increased performance and productivity.

Professional Integrity– A people professional is mandated with a role of establishing, maintaining and developing business relations confidently, trust-based and mutual respect. This is while exhibiting and role modelling good behaviours. In my practice, I always embrace honesty, respecting others and focusing on assuming responsibility for any of my decision or action made.

Task 1: Question 2

3.1 Role of People professional (generalist/specialist) evolving and priorities raised for CPD

Adopting the definition of Personio (2022), CPD is ‘a combination of approaches, ideas and techniques which assist in management of individual learning and growth process’. Further, CIPD (2022b) argued that credibility of people profession is informed critically on level of being committed to continuing self-improvement.

Reflective practice is defined in CIPD (2022c) as a process of thinking about or reflecting on what an individual do. It has a direct correlation with learning from experience. From my personal experience, in every 3 months, I pursue a reflective practice where I reflect on thinking on what I did, what occurred, and eventually making a decision on what need to be done distinctly in future.

Considering how the people profession is changing, the areas of considerations include;

Transition from Administration to Strategy

As evidenced in Forbes (2013), the people function is transition from administrative to strategic roles. Before emergence of COVID-19 pandemic, the administrative function was identified as being rare for HR teams. The demand for technology increase has positively contributed to supporting talent management programs and critical engagement assessing and developing talents. For example, in MNGHA Saudi Arabia (KSA) organisation, the HR is primarily strategic. This is since it is found appropriately aligning organisation employees with the entire goals.

People-focused practice and tech-savvy

Since 2010, Chang-Richards et al. (2022) argue that the HR function is increasingly transitioning to become people-focused and tech-savvy. This is being achieved through improvement of the resourcing and management process. With the technologies significantly changing, innovativeness embrace is currently a significant approach in doing things. The challenge for this in MNGHA organisation where I have worked as a people practice professional include missing out on strategies and tools which are core game-changers. The areas of focus include big data, mobile tools use, integrating social media platforms, embracing globalisation, tech-up training, and grasp analytics.

Increased specialisms and job titles

For people professionals, there has been multiple concepts which did not exist previously and are currently in place which were non-existence 50 or even 15 years ago (Forbes, 2022). These include and not limited to gig economy. Similarly, the job titles and areas of specialism are being changed for reflecting to these changes. For instance, for MNGHA, there are new job positions which have emerged such as Chief Happiness Officer, Chief Heart Officer and Lead People Data Scientist. For these new job positions, they prioritise on the employees as individuals and not basically as resources.

Task 1: Question 3

1.2 Ethical Values Concept; Ethical Values Held Personally impacting people professional roles

As evidenced in CIPD (2019), ethical values ‘offer moral compass in which we live our lives and make decisions; doing the right thing because this is the right thing to do’. Further, in the CIPD HR professional map, CIPD (2022d) note that ethical practice represent the core behaviours which evidence the scope of its impact on people lives and organisation reputation.

The examples of personal values held include;

Equality- For a basic point of view, AIHR (2022) highlight the process as treating all (candidates) employees in a similar manner and providing them with equal opportunities. This is irrespective of age, gender, race, religion, sexual background and demographic. For instance, in my recruitment process in MNGA, all employees are offered with similar amount of time for completing work assignment as a requirement in the resourcing process. The impact of this to the employees is feeling appreciated in their roles and hence ready to take part in their recruited roles. This is while improving the overall retention of the employees.

Valuing others- In the CIPD HR Professional Map, valuing others is categorised as core behaviours (CIPD, 2022e). This is a process of valuing what others offer to the organisation and is core to ensuring that people perspective is integrated in business decisions. Working in MNGHA, by valuing others, the employees improve on their dedication of providing customers with required services. This end up serving the organisation greatly. Part of my role is ensuring that I am empowering the employees and encouraging them in using their intellect and ideas in executing their roles in their jobs. At one point when the employees were feeling unappreciated, MNGHA had recorded all time low performance with the employees lacking essential productivity hence affected in their business operation.

Fairness– As described by CIPD (2022f) treating all employees fairly is a practice of balancing all stakeholders in regard to their interests and facilitation. For instance, working in MNGHA, I achieve this by making sure the policies and practices in rewards management are characterised by fairness. For instance, in rewarding the employees, I ensure that both men and women working in similar roles are paid equally. This is with gender pay reporting adequately being facilitated in their operations. By fairly treating all employees, the organisation trust is improved, their morale increased, deepening loyalty with productivity increased. In instances where fairness was not exercised, the employees affected had limited productivity and got involved in deceptive behaviours hence their turnover being high.

Task 1: Question 4

1.3 People Professionals Contributions Confidently to Discussions and ways of doing this;

Informed

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