You are here: /commentary/professional-responsibility
One of the first assessments in determining professional responsibility is a reliance on an object, person or thing, that is necessary for a person to complete their work. This can be a business manager, a parent, a teacher, a school system, a doctor, therapist, significant other, spouse or child. It may also be a computing device, certain prosthetics, business agreements, or required policies.
Many people are dependent on rent, food, and utilities to even consider going out and looking for a job.
Dependency issues can relate to a substance such as ambien, xanax, pain killers, mood alterers, or muscle relaxers. It can be an over the counter substance like caffeine or breath freshener, vitamins or eyedrops. This means that a person requires these substances to feel normal and complete tasks throughout the day that contribute to their health and emotional well being.
People with professional responsibilities are often liable for mistakes in their work and the work of others on their team that look to them for guidance. They do not necessarily have to be a supervisor and they are not required to be responsible for everyone that looks to them for guidance. That is a mutually consensual process and a person may be asked to reference someone else for guidance if the results of their work and intention of the guidance are too dissimilar.
Their income can often be garnished to federal minimum wage plus minimum expenses to survive. This can result in a new threshold being set for their minimum expense level or it can result in having to concede to finding another job.
Dependencies are viewed as an accommodation, while a person may feel prompted to say "everyone needs some form of accommodation", it would not be accurate to assume so. A large portion of professionals require no accommodation and complete their job based only on policy and agreements. The agreements have been assessed for accommodation and have been determined to be without accommodation.
This does not mean that people with a need for accommodation are not allowed to participate in professional environments. Their accommodations are often assessed and written into an agreement. Accommodations are normally covered by privacy rights. If someone is in the workplace and their behavior seems inappropriate, it is better to talk with HR about your own discomfort in the workplace instead of calling people out on their behaviors. They may have an agreement that allows that behavior in the workplace.
After all of these assessments have been made, a person is granted professional responsibilities. This comes with liabilities for the professional and there may be people in the background litigating or making proposals for the next agreement during a dispute or time of extreme success.
The professional is required to follow a standard set of conduct, to show impartiality and none bias in their decisions, and to communicate standards and upcoming guidelines regarding the work they are doing. The intent is that other people will be building off of their work and this may their own team, or someone else working on their own project but licensing some of the professionals work as part of the agreements in their projects. Timely communication is always appreciated in professional environments.
People with professional liabilities are often not required to be licensed by a licensing board. Normally, licensing boards request their advice or ask them to participate on an advisory board. They must often carry insurance, normally the insurance cant actually insure them because the insurance company would essentially have to pay them to redo their own work.
They must use discretion in their decision making process because they are liable for their own time and their decisions can affect the time commitments and economic results of others relying on their data. Its implied that this is often without an agreement and using the published data as is, but still there's an agreement that they are the professional.
Professional responsibilities is often not an application process, it is a nomination process so if a business advisor suggests getting professional responsibility insurance and the insurance company agrees, then that's pretty much the process. The application consists of a few questions like name, business name, industry, and if there are any employees or direct customers. They will often want to know the location of a few different work areas. The insurance is applied directly to the professional or they are listed as an officer for an organization. There is still work in progress for an officer of multiple organizations.
The way this varies from licensing is that a person with a license reports to a licensing board for any questions, complaints from customers, or changes in work environment that are not covered by licensing agreements. They may have to complete school, job training, or a certification program to be eligible for a license. Many people are either licensed or certified but not both, some people due have both and are normally referred to the licensing board with certification.
Continuing education is a popular topic. This is normally for people that have areas of improvement in their work requirements. Before 2011, people with certification were not required to complete continuing education and this now varies by certification. Many certifications allow being recertified every 5 years and this allows focusing more on work during that time period with year 4 being a comparative analysis between workplace requirements and certification requirements.
Other continuing education certifications have a 3 year certification period and while these allow the same process as the 5 year certification, they are normally recommended to ask for an accommodation at work so they can study each year instead of retesting until they can do a 5 year certification program or test for an updated certification. The current conversation is that they will only be able to miss 1 test through this process, in year 6 and will have to retest or change certifications in year 9. What a lot of workers have assumed is that they can skip the continuing education after their certification has been renewed. However, this has ended with an inability to pass the retest or switch to a 5 year certification for some workers.
Studying work related contexts or attending college or university is also seen as continuing education. However, these concepts should not be mixed up. People often attend school for self enrichment or personal development, or to get an idea of what a workplace might look like by completing a degree program. College is a different topic but being in college can count toward continuing education if the course work is related to a certification.
Business Insurance - This can also be organizational insurance however large organizations often have various insurance plans for property, workers, litigation, and economic environments. Business insurance seems similar to professional liability insurance and it can be if a professional is on the board of directors but, their insurance will often only cover people they work with directly and will be limited to other workers in the organization. A lot of organizations have an organizational insurance and some of their workers have their own professional liability insurance. A few of them will inadvertently be on the board of directors.
Professional responsibilities requires a code of conduct, written policies, open communications, and a quality product or service. The professional must understand that they are in charge of the majority of their own work and that they must contemplate an agreement before it is made. The agreements can not be rushed even if they are to be timely and occasionally require service on an urgent notice.
An assessment for professional liabilities is often done through a nomination process and the professional can accept or reject the nomination. There is often no resentment in being declined for a nomination, and the nominee is often allowed to later change their mind. They can also suggest another person who might be more suitably qualified and this can go through an asessment or proposal and election process.