This unit explores how demonstrating core professional behaviours, such as ethical practice, courage and inclusivity, can strengthen positive working relationships, promote employee voice, and support well-being. It also examines how developing and embedding these behaviours in day-to-day practice can enhance individual and organisational performance.
Table of Contents
Task One – Case Study Questions
AC 1.1 As part of her actions to improve systems and procedures at Nexxobyte, Aisha has established monthly on-site Management Team meetings to be attended by her, Kit, you and the three Team Leaders. She would like you to make a short presentation at the first meeting ‘appraising what it means to be a people professional, and some of the ways you can contribute at Nexxobyte.’
Provide a written response covering the points you would include in this presentation.
Introduction
Good morning everyone. Thank you for attending this first Management Team meeting. Aisha has asked me to share what being a people professional means and how I can contribute to Nexxobyte’s continued success. Given the challenges we’ve experienced with inconsistent practices and staff concerns, establishing strong people management foundations is essential for our growth trajectory.
Defining the People Professional Role
Being a people professional means meeting the standards established within the CIPD Profession Map, which provides the definitive framework for excellence in our field (CIPD, 2023). The Profession Map outlines core knowledge areas, specialist capabilities, and essential behaviours that distinguish effective people practitioners. At its foundation, being a people professional requires demonstrating specific values that guide all workplace decisions and interactions.
Core Professional Values
Principle-Led Practice:
People professionals must serve as ambassadors for ethical workplace conduct, consistently pursuing constructive development whilst leveraging expertise to create meaningful work experiences. At Nexxobyte, this means establishing fair, transparent processes that benefit both our talented engineers and the organisation’s commercial objectives.
Evidence-Based Decision Making:
Rather than relying upon intuition or assumptions, people professionals ground decisions in behavioural science research, organisational data, and established practitioner expertise (CIPD, 2023). For Nexxobyte, this approach will help us move beyond ad-hoc decisions toward systematic processes that reduce errors and improve outcomes.
Core Knowledge and Behaviours
People professionals possess comprehensive understanding of the employee lifecycle, from attraction and recruitment through onboarding, development, performance management, reward, and eventual separation. Critically, we understand technology’s role in enhancing employee experience and operational efficiency (Martin, 2021). Given Nexxobyte’s technology focus, I’m well-positioned to leverage digital tools for HR processes whilst understanding our engineers’ technical mindset.
Ethical practice underpins all people professional activities, encompassing respect, equality, fairness, and accountability (Schroeder et al., 2019). We promote inclusion through transparent communication and ensuring all employees have voice in workplace matters.
How I Can Contribute at Nexxobyte
Given our current challenges with inconsistent management practices across the three teams, I can contribute in several immediate ways:
Firstly, I will develop standardised policies and procedures ensuring consistent treatment across all teams, addressing the inequitable access to paid L&D and differing working arrangements that have generated complaints. Secondly, I will support our team managers in developing people management capabilities, recognising that they were allocated roles without prior training or experience. Thirdly, I will establish fair recruitment and selection processes, replacing the informal approaches that have led to variable team compositions. Finally, I will create mechanisms for employee voice, ensuring concerns are heard and addressed before they escalate to complaints or departures.
I look forward to working collaboratively with each of you to build Nexxobyte’s people management capability alongside our commercial success.
AC 1.2 Discuss two of your personal or ethical values that you believe will help you in your new role, and how consistently applying these will inform your people practice work at Nexxobyte. Ethical values constitute fundamental principles guiding behaviour, decisions, and interactions with stakeholders including employees, leadership, and the broader organisation (CIPD, 2022). These values prove essential in people practice contexts for building trust, ensuring legal compliance, and creating positive workplace cultures. Two values particularly relevant to my work
ork at Nexxobyte are fairness and integrity.
Value One: Fairness
Fairness encompasses treating all individuals equitably, ensuring consistent access to opportunities regardless of personal circumstances or relationships (Schroeder et al., 2019). This value holds particular significance at Nexxobyte given the identified issues with inconsistent treatment across teams.
Application at Nexxobyte
Consistently applying fairness will directly address several current problems. The disparity in access to paid L&D activities represents a clear fairness violation, with some team members receiving extensive development opportunities whilst others face consistent refusal. I will ensure any new Staff Learning & Development Policy provides equitable access based on transparent criteria rather than managerial favouritism.
Similarly, the different working arrangements across teams create perceptions of inequity. Whilst some flexibility may be appropriate for role differences, fundamental terms should be consistent. Applying fairness means establishing baseline standards whilst allowing justified variations, always with transparent rationale.
In recruitment decisions, fairness requires merit-based selection processes replacing the informal approaches currently used. This protects Nexxobyte legally whilst ensuring we attract and retain the best talent based on capability rather than personal connections.
Value Two: Integrity
Integrity involves maintaining honesty...
Subscribe to Unlock
Subscribe to unlock this premium content and access our entire library of exclusive learning materials.
