The appeal to your profession
Developments in society follow each other in rapid succession. What is valid today may be different tomorrow.
These changes appeal to your profession, time and time again.
More than in the past, the professional is confronted with issues and problems within the work environment that have their roots in society. In recent years, many societal challenges have fallen on the plate of professionals. Professions that focus primarily on the well-being and development of people experience these challenges more intensively.
That makes the task of the people professionals couldn't be easier.
Students of the vocational schools of the people professionals experience that appeal to their future profession doubly:
On the one hand, they are undergoing a changing world of education with knowledge and skills that may or may not be sufficiently adjusted.
On the other hand, they do internships in this changing and sometimes turbulent professional practice and they are supervised by professionals who may be struggling with the social tasks assigned to them.
More and more attention is demanded from the professionals to take into account the differences in the background of the clients. ; often recognizing and acknowledging those differences goes hand in hand with differences in views on the professional's field of work.
Questions and expectations of the client and of his close relations are also an important source of the need to continuously adjust the work. These changes and expectations often have a profound impact on the daily practice of people professionals. More and more seems to need to be done. Complaints about increased work pressure are common.
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In addition, the growing demands and expectations of the government put pressure on social organizations and people professionals even further. Government policy is increasingly driven by economic logic, in which standards of efficiency and effectiveness occupy an increasingly prominent and exclusive place. This makes designing the work of the people professional and their day-to-day performance by them becomes increasingly disconnected. Objectives are increasingly being defined by agencies outside the professional work environment (often in the form of protocols with behaviorally formulated criteria), which means that the involvement of the people professional decreases in his or her work.
At the same time, the professionals are subjected to greater scrutiny and accountability. The external pressure to perform them is increasing because they have to carry out more and more different (imposed) professional tasks, without sufficient time and resources being available for this. This creates less room for creativity, collegial relationships and private life. This press the people professionals has an emotionally taxing impact and can lead to chronic overload (both during and outside the working day).
The quality of the professionals is thus narrowed down to observable behavioural indicators that they must display, and which are recorded in the various professional registers. The dominant tendency of recent years is to improve the qualities of the people professional dividing it into tick-off and observable behaviours leads to these checklists being seen as the complete description of the quality of that professional.
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We consider that incomplete.
Craftsmanship of a professional presupposes competence, but also dedication and attitude (skills, commitment & judgment)