Defining Professionalism

In this two-part article, we are going to look at professionalism from two perspectives – first through the eyes of a manager or owner and then from the view of individual employees. Today's article focuses on professionalism in the workplace.

Perhaps the highest compliment we can give to an individual or to an organization is to say that it is professional. But what does that mean? In the golf world, one definition revolves around payment: professional golfers get paid while amateur golfers do not. But that definition does not apply when talking about people doing their jobs and organizations offering services to customers.

MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE. If you manage a facility or operate a business, how do you let the world know that you are running a professional operation? Basically, managers have to do two things: provide direction to staff and learn to think like a customer. Let’s take a look at these two requirements more closely.

PROVIDE DIRECTION. This direction can be divided into the following:

1. Set standards. What kind of service would you like your customers to receive? This is far too important a question to be left up to individual employees to answer in a variety of ways, yet that’s often what managers do.
Managers sometimes expect their employees to know intuitively what constitutes a professional approach to work. How many times should the phone ring before it is answered? How should customers be greeted? What should you do if the phone rings while you are helping another customer? These are just a few examples of the types of questions which managers need to address in order to provide direction to their employees.

Have you ever heard a person say something like: “When you go there, don’t speak to Mary. Ask for Fred; he’s much more helpful.” If it makes a difference to whom you talk, that’s usually a sign that the operation does hot have consistent service standards.

General statements such as “be nice to people” or “give great service” are a start – but it’s much more helpful to employees to have specific direction and definitions of what is expected of them and what the public can expect when they deal with a member of your staff.

2. Recognize and teach service skills. The ability to maintain a consistently professional and positive approach to work is a special skill. Not everyone is good with numbers or at writing reports. The same is true of professionalism. It is not easy to continue smiling or remain pleasant through an entire day’s work. It’s not easy to deal with difficult people (and some of them are very difficult) and not get upset. It require very special skills to turn an angry, complaining person into a satisfied customer who will return with a more positive attitude.

When placing employees in front-line positions, managers should look for people who seem suited to customer service work. And, more important, managers should ensure that employees receive the training they need to enable them to do their jobs properly. Most managers would never dream of hiring someone to operate a piece of equipment without first making sure that the person either knew how to operate it or was given training. People are frequently hired for front-line, customer contact positions with no training – just a vague expectation that somehow they intuitively will know how to handle every situation that occurs.

Organizations noted for their professionalism place a high value on employee training, both during orientation and as an ongoing practice. Everything from the basics, such as positive communication techniques and telephone skills, to more complex issues such as diffusing customer anger are important for staff to learn.

3. Value your front-line staff. If customers are the most important part of any operation, then the staff who work directly with customers are also very important people.

Ironically, it is usually the lowest paid, lowest seniority, often part-time or seasonal people who have the greatest customer contact. Except in very small businesses, the most senior people are usually the furthest removed from day-to-day customer contact.

It is essential for managers to show their front-line staff how important they are to the success of the organization. There are many ways to recognize and reward positive attitudes in the professional world and to show people that you value what they do. Management’s attitude toward employees translates directly into employees’ attitudes toward customers. Employees must genuinely appreciate the importance of making each interaction with customers a positive one and they must understand the impact their actions have on the reputation of the organization.

THINK LIKE A CUSTOMER. If you want to be perceived positively by the customer, it is essential to start thinking like your customers. They often see your operation from a very different perspective. In general, customers tend to evaluate six things. What does professionalism look like to your customers? Ask yourself these questions:

a) Physical environment: What does your operation look like? This includes things like offices, buildings, trucks, equipment, signage, grounds, parking – just about every element of your physical setup. Do things look well maintained, clean, organized, neat?

b) Interpersonal interaction: What is it like dealing with your staff? Are they pleasant, knowledgeable, positive? Do they give the impression that they know what they are doing and have been trained?

c) Information: How easy or difficult is it to get information? How many different people do you have to talk to to get answers? Are you ever told, “I don’t know, that’s not my department.”

d) Systems, processes, procedures: How easy or difficult is it to do business with you? How long do you wait to get a phone call returned? Do you take debit cards? Do your brochures look good and is everything spelled correctly?

e) Deliverables: What is the quality of the product or service that you provide? Does the property look good?

f) Perceived value: For what it cost, what is my impression of the overall value of what I received?

INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVE. What does it mean for an individual employee to be “professional”? When asked that question, most people give these answers:

The author is a partner of Pinnington Training & Development, a Cambridge, Ontario-based firm that specializes in the design and delivery of skill-based development programs for business, industry and publicly funded organizations.