What Does Professionalism Mean In The Workplace

Professionalism means something different to different people. It is unique to our personalities because we all hold ourselves to different standards. I understand professionalism to mean different things in the workplace compared to the classroom. Throughout this essay I will discuss different interpretations of professionalism. In my own words, professionalism is the degree to which one aims to conduct ones self in a setting where they aim to act mature, to gain a higher respect or to impress. In a shorter sense, professionalism means being the most impressive version on yourself. To an employer, I believe professionalism means that someone is acting their age, and they’re not cutting anyone any slack because they’re a recent college grad. I think employers also think of it in the sense that someone is willing to continuously go above and beyond even though they’ve been with the company for years. It can also be as simple as conducting yourself in a reasonable manner at a company function with an open bar. A time when I acted professionally was when I made the decision to go to a work function that was at a bar, even though I was not of age, but for the experience, to network and make a good impression on my bosses. Even though most of my coworkers were drunk I felt that I made the right decision to go and not drink but still …show more content…
Obviously, you want to treat people in the workplace and in the classroom with the most respect and you want to work hard in both settings. But it is different in the sense of style; typically you dress more professional for work than you would for class. Perhaps at work you can refer to you boss by his or her first name but in the classroom you don’t address your professor by their first name. All in all, there are some similarities and some differences when it comes to professionalism in the workplace and in the