SFS Professionalism Team Launches New Initiative

by Karen Long and Denise Murillo

Would you like to improve the professionalism in your office? Student Fiscal Services (SFS) wanted to do so and thus the Student Fiscal Services Professionalism Team was formed. This team was one of the three teams created as a result of concerns expressed by staff and leader in the September 2003 SFS retreat.

The mission of the team was to understand what the term “professionalism” means, to identify actions that demonstrate it, recommend a definition for SFS, and to suggest ways of becoming more professional. SFS Team members are Frannie Gladney, Gerald Pearson, Dick Simmons, and Bev Trulson. The team is capably facilitated by Debby Seaman and Ruth Johnston serves as our sponsor.

The SFS Professionalism Team first decided to use a survey to find out what SFS leaders and staff thought “professionalism” meant. The team therefore drafted a survey which asked open-ended questions about the definition of professionalism, what professionalism looks like, and asked for examples of how they and others demonstrate professionalism. The results of the survey were then compiled into categories that were developed from FM Staff and Leader Qualities and SFS Customer Service Standards. The most often repeated element of Professionalism in responses to 3 out of the 4 survey questions was “Treating customers, co-workers, and process partners with respect and caring while being friendly, courteous, and approachable.” In addition, there was a new element introduced in the survey responses that is not included in either Staff and Leader Qualities or SFS Customer Service Standards: Professionalism entails dress and appearance.

After sending out survey results to all SFS employees, the team then created the definition of Professionalism based on the input from the survey:

“Professionalism is exhibited when staff and leaders show respect for both individuals and their organization. The respect for individuals includes respecting the rights and privileges of others (customers, co-workers, process partners) such as being courteous and friendly, treating everyone fairly, sharing information, communicating directly, and valuing the diversity and achievement of others.

A committed staff member or leader who exhibits professionalism takes the extra step to ensure that their knowledge and expertise in their work will positively affect the customer and the image of the organization, including having a neat and clean appearance.

Staff and leaders who demonstrate professional behavior are committed to ongoing self-improvement, continual learning, and are adaptable to change. They are excellent listeners and are accountable for their own actions.”

The team also proposed to Ruth that we would develop a SFS Professional Code of Conduct based on the survey results and similar Code of Conducts or Working Philosophies that we had gathered from other UW departments. The team also proposed creating a training booklet that illustrated examples of both professional and problem behavior. Ruth supported our recommendations and also helped us by providing additional information she had from other universities and organizations. The team then drafted the SFS Code of Conduct and then asked for input from SFS leaders, a focus group of SFS staff from different units, and from UW Human Resources. Then the team revised the SFS Professional Code of Conduct and Definition of Professionalism after considering the input we had received.

Our next step was to develop a training booklet to be used in training all SFS employees.

We were ably assisted by Diane Cooley in creating this booklet with the illustrated examples of behavior. On June 3, the SFS Professionalism Training session was held in the Ethnic Culture Center. The team presented their results and was able to gather many more examples of professional behavior and problem behavior from the group exercises used in the training.