Preparing for a Professional Career

This report discusses ethical issues faced by businesses, working conditions, staff retention, and the importance of a code of conduct and professional body organizations. It also includes a CPD plan for continuous development.

Preparing for a
Professional Career

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART A...........................................................................................................................................1
Introducing issues and challenges faced by companies...............................................................1
Code of Conduct in order to resolve and address issues..............................................................2
Support and guidance from professional body organisation........................................................2
Identifying impacts of code of conduct and professional body organisation..............................3
TASK B...........................................................................................................................................3
CPD Plan......................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Professional career refers to a kind of job which requires a special training or education.
These jobs requires some advanced level of training and post secondary qualification. Since
businesses are evolving very rapidly worldwide, problems related to operations of business are
also increasing very fast (Lent, 2018). These problems are diverse in aspects, nature as well as
consequences and which are also known as ethical issues faced by global business environment.
It is essential to analyse and evaluate these problems in time until it is too late.
This report consists of various aspects of ethical issues faced within a business
environment and their impacts on operational activities of a firm. It includes a code of conduct
to improve this situations with a professional body organisation which helps organisations to
deal and overcome this problems. This report also includes a CPD plan to reflect continuous
development and enhance of knowledge of this module.
PART A
Introducing issues and challenges faced by companies
Ethical issues are problems faced by businesses in aspects of moral conflicts which arise
while trading its operational activities. It is essential for an organisation to maintain its ethical
issues while operating its business activities in order to achieve strong reputation and
sustainability in market. Working conditions refers to desired environment, terms and demands
of a job which influence satisfactions of employees working in a company (Castellano and Et.
Al., 2017) . It will be easily to understand with help of two different companies which operates
in two distinct industries and they are Travelodge and Tesco. In aspect of Travelodge, it operates
in hotel industry and is facing issues of staff retention under its company. Employees of
Travelodge are dissatisfied with the company because of its long working hours. Poor retention
in company is usually linked by long working hours, poor pay as well as unstimulating work.
Issues of working conditions has affected this hotelier in both positive and negative way.
Employees of Travelodge were suffering from irregular working hours which impacts negatively
by decreasing staffs in company. Innovations in technology has affected working conditions of
Travelodge positively. This hotelier is looking forward to adapt latest technologies like Robots in
its check points or entrance in order to provide good facilities and services to its guests as well as
covering need of man power in its operational activities. Similarly working conditions has also
1

influenced operational activities of Tesco. Staff of Tesco is facing issues in working conditions
under this retail company. In Covid-19 scenario, Tesco was allotting its employees to work under
an irregular working hours. This has impacted in staff retention within this retail company.
Employees were facing dissatisfaction while working under pandemics because of being
concerned of their health and safety measures as well as of irregular shifts and long working
hours. This issue of working condition affected Tesco both positively and negatively. Where
company was facing issues with staff retention in this pandemic because of its working
conditions, it helped company to increase its profitability by satisfying its customers in terms of
providing goods in pandemic.
Code of Conduct in order to resolve and address issues
Code of Conduct are rules and regulation which are to be adhere by management as well
as employees of an organisation in order to decrease ethical issues within organisation (Fletcher,
Warren and Hernández-Gantes, 2018). Code of Conduct reviews mission and vision of a
company with its values and creates standards of professional behaviour in the company. In
order to resolve and address working conditions issues companies has implemented various code
of conducts such as company's values, employees behaviours, employee break policy, leave
policy, etc. In context of Travelodge, this hotelier has implemented several code of conducts
such as leave policy, employee break policy, etc. to resolve working conditions issues faced by
them. Hotelier has allotted break policy which includes lunch break, tea break for its staff to
provide them convenient environment to work with. This helped Travelodge in decreasing its
staff retention and improve its reputation in market. This policies of code of conduct helped
employees of Travelodge to have breaks in working hours for refreshment. Simultaneously,
Tesco has created some codes of conduct such as fixed working hours, employees health and
safety measures etc. This codes helped Tesco in allotting fixed working hours for its employees
which impacts in providing job satisfactions as well as decreasing rate of staff retention in
company. This code provided satisfaction and a favourable environment to work to employees of
Tesco which made them to work at their full potentials in those limited working hours.
Support and guidance from professional body organisation
Professional body organisation refers to a membership based organisation which are
involved in developing professional skills, knowledge and education in order to support its
members in their activities (Griner and Salmon, 2021). British Hospitality Association is a non
2

government organisation which represents hotels, restaurant, clubs and other hospitality
industries of UK as well as is headquartered in London. This association provides guidelines
related to size of establishments, price to be charged by customers, employees protections&
welfare rules, etc. to hospitality organisations functioning in UK. This British Hospitality
Association allots guidelines to trade or operate which are compulsory to be followed by
hospitality industries in UK. This association looks after needs, goals, skills of its members and
suggests essential strategies in order to accomplish their goals in market (Sidebotham and Et.
Al., 2018). British Hospitality Association guides Travelodge in looking after its employees
needs and make necessary strategies to sustain position in market as well as achieve operational
business goals. While in aspect of Tesco which operates in retail industry, British Retail
Consortium is a professional body which represents retail industry of UK while focusing on
careers of peoples involved in retail sector, providing opportunities to trade as well as satisfy
consumer needs in market. This association protects retailers and workers from criminal
offenders as well as sets rules to trade while looking after interest of retailers, workers and their
customers in UK.
Identifying impacts of code of conduct and professional body organisation
Professional body organisation as well as code of conduct has various impacts on
strategies and activities of Travelodge in UK. British hospitality association guides norms and
regulations which includes maximum working hours for employees, amount to be charged from
customers, minimum wage rates, etc. to hospitality industries functioning in UK (Halonen and
Dunn, 2018). This resulted in creating code of conducts by Travelodge in order to provide
satisfaction to its employees as well as following regulatory norms issued by British hospitality
association. Developing code of conduct by management of Travelodge has impacted positively
in organisational activities by decreasing staff retention rate in organisation by providing a fixed
limited time to work for its employees, building reputation in market while providing satisfactory
environment to its staffs, enhancing its operational activities, etc. Conversely, it also impacted
negatively for this hospitality industry as this code of conduct has made employees to take
unnecessarily leave which impacts in slow down process of its operational activities. It also
influenced Travelodge in increase of its cost by hiring more employees to work on various shifts.
3

TASK B
CPD Plan
Continuous professional development is a framework of analysing ongoing procedure of
maintaining, developing as well as documenting professional skills of an individual working in a
company (Gunderson, 2021). This skills can be achieved formally through training, online or
through informal means by watching others or on field work. Apart from this it also contains
future implications as well as is also essential for individual to enhance its innovative skills for
future development. In aspect of working conditions of an organisation there are various codes of
conducts which are been evaluated as below in a CPD plan:
CPD Plan
What do I want to
learn?
What will I do to
achieve this?
What resources or
support will I need?
What is my success
criteria?
Maintaining working
conditions
A proper analysis of
working conditions
must be done by
students in order to
determine working
conditions ethical
issues faced by an
organisation(Hallmann
and Et. Al., 2019).
Analytical skills,
knowledge about firm
& its operations,
technical skills,
general knowledge
and communication
skills will be required
by students to
determine working
conditions of a
company.
While adapting this
skills and knowledge
will help students to
enhance their
knowledge by 50% in
next 6 months in
regards with working
conditions of an
organisations.
Guidelines of
professional body
organisation
Identifying and
understanding
guidelines set by
professional body
organisation with their
impacts will help
student to gain
Guidance from seniors
and lecturers will be
needed to understand
dynamic policies set
by professional body
organisation.
This understanding
will help student in
gaining knowledge by
40% about different
policies implemented
by professional body
in their respective
4

knowledge of their
dynamic policies.
fields.
CONCLUSION
From the above project it is concluded that ethical issues are problems or conflicts faced
by companies while operating its functional activities in market. This issues are basically faced
by businesses across the world and it is necessary for businesses to maintain or control this issues
on time. Working conditions are demands or favourable environment desired by employees to
work under a company. Staff retention is a kind of working condition issues faced by companies
intentionally or unintentionally. Staff retention occurs in a company when employees are
dissatisfied depending on the terms of organisational rules, procedure of work, pay scale,
working hours etc. Effective decision making process has been carried forward to create ior
develop code of conduct in order to resolve working conditions issues. Several professional
bodies are involved in solving this problems within a respective industry.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Castellano, M. E. and Et. Al., 2017. Preparing students for college and career in the United
States: The effects of career-themed programs of study on high school performance.
Vocations and Learning. 10(1). pp.47-70.
Fletcher Jr, E. C., Warren, N. Q. and Hernández-Gantes, V. M., 2018. Preparing high school
students for a changing world: College, career, and future ready learners. Career and
Technical Education Research. 43(1). pp.77-97.
Griner, A. and Salmon, A., 2021. Preparing to Be a Professional.
Gunderson, L. L., 2021. Preparing for Retirement and Career Transitions. In Career
Development in Academic Radiation Oncology (pp. 399-410). Springer, Cham.
Hallmann, K. and Et. Al., 2019. Preparing elite athletes for the career after the career: the
functions of mentoring programmes. Sport in Society.
Halonen, J. S. and Dunn, D. S., 2018. Embedding career issues in advanced psychology major
courses. Teaching of Psychology. 45(1). pp.41-49.
Lent, R. W., 2018. Future of work in the digital world: Preparing for instability and opportunity.
The Career Development Quarterly. 66(3). pp.205-219.
Sidebotham, M., and Et. Al., 2018. Preparing student midwives for professional practice:
Evaluation of a student e-portfolio assessment item. Nurse education in practice. 32.
pp.84-89.
6