The professional values are the principles that guide decisions related to the labor and educational development of a citizen. All individuals are expected to be competent in their work and respectful of their peers and the environment.
In addition, individuals must be diligent and honest in everything that has to do with acting as a citizen and as a professional.
Professional performance encompasses much more than simply performing a task for remuneration.
It implies a vocation of service that should lead to doing good and being useful to society. Professional values should guarantee the rationality that gives meaning to the job profession.
Main features
To establish professional values, many unions have created codes of ethics. In these, the final and behavioral guidelines and objectives of the daily exercise of their career are defined.
There, ethical principles are established that give meaning to the work and the ultimate goal of the citizen's performance, which should be to serve with honesty and vocation.
Based on this idea, it is established that the worker must always act for the benefit of their bosses, their company and their clients, always to the detriment of their own selfish or monetary interests.
In these codes the worker is expected to respond positively, not by following an imposition of rules, but rather that it is their values that make them manifest themselves correctly in the circumstances.
It will be clear that professional ethics will be identified in these codes as the ideal way to act, achieving the estimation and recognition of work performance.
The worker should feel identified in a natural and automatic way with the values of service in favor of the common good.
To acquire this level of consciousness, it is assumed that in university education the principles, criteria and values that could guarantee the complete training of the professional were imparted.
The professional commitment is a value that allows to place the vocation, the honor and the service before the commitments assumed above the economic benefits, either in front of a company or a client.
Examples
One of the professions that makes it possible to illustrate more clearly what professional values are and how they are applied is the legal profession.
The legal professional's objective is the achievement and success of justice; then, it is expected that in its development it can safeguard the rights of individuals against the State.
Ideally, you should carry out your work with an emphasis on honor and respect for the rule of law.
The professional values in the legal profession could then be summarized under the ethical codes of honesty, probity, sincerity, rectitude and diligence.
Honesty is translated as the morality and integrity that leads the individual to act attached to the truth, thus preventing corruption from flooding their performance.
For its part, probity corresponds to the value with which the individual identifies himself as a human being, and starting from that point he exercises goodness.
With regard to sincerity, it is understood that the lawyer will never want to harm his client, and that he will always act in good faith.
Righteousness is understood as a value linked to justice and impartiality. Finally, diligence implies that the lawyer develops to the maximum her abilities to defend her client, with an efficient performance avoiding negligence.
References
- Torres, E. (2001). Professional skills and values. Retrieved on December 13, 2017 from: mes.edu.cu
- Casares, P. (2010). Professional values in university education. Retrieved on December 13, 2017 from: scielo.org.mx
- Ibarra, G. (2007). Ethics and professional values. Retrieved on December 13, 2017 from: redalyc.org
- Kelsen, H. (2000). Pure theory of law. Santiago: Editorial La Ley.
- Aguirre, M. (sf). Essential elements of law. Retrieved on December 13, 2017 from: academia.edu