Four Easy Ways to Conduct Yourself Professionally

Posted on Thursday, June 8th, 2017

When you are first starting out in your career, no matter what industry you’re in, you will be laying the foundation for a professional reputation that will follow you throughout your work life. On this blog, we’ve talked before about how to manage that reputation, through consciously building a brand for yourself (read our guide here).

Part of your brand will encompass how you behave at work. Your professional comportment says a lot about how you wish to be perceived, and goes a long way to helping people view you as a responsible and mature co-worker.

How to be Professional

Important as it is, it can be difficult to identify how to conduct yourself professionally when you’re first starting out. If you don’t have experience in professional environments, knowing what the unspoken expectations are can be tricky. And if you’re young, there may be some expectations of you based on your age that you’ll need to overcome.

But there are some universal guidelines that you should practice from day one at your job or placement to be professional. Being respectful is the biggest one.

This may seem obvious, but there are ways of communicating respect that go beyond being polite and holding doors open. Respect is shown in all different aspects of behaviour, and when you start in a new environment it will help you to practice them.

Below, we look at four ways to show respect and behave professionally in the workplace.

1. Be on Time

Here is a quote you should embrace fully: “Five minutes early is on time; on time is late; late is unacceptable.”

You will find that people around you are late all the time, and it can be really easy to slip into that mentality, too. But you shouldn’t. Being late shows a lack of respect for the time of those around you. It shows that you can’t be relied on for the simplest of things. It shows that you don’t care about your job or the people you work with.

None of those things may be true! You may deeply respect those around you and care very much for your job, and your work might be the best work you’ve ever done. But being routinely late will slowly become part of your reputation, and you don’t want that.

2. Dress Professionally

It may not seem like a big deal, but the way you dress is an important part of demonstrating to your workplace that you respect your co-workers and your job. Depending on who you believe, you have about 7 seconds to make a positive first impression. And a big part of that will inevitably be your outfit.

This doesn’t mean you need to have a high-fashion, expensive wardrobe. All it means is that you dress appropriately to your workplace.

We have a whole post on how to start building your professional wardrobe without breaking the bank.

3. Stay Away from Office Politics

Once you start to get comfortable at the office and begin making friends, it can be easy to indulge in gossip. You spend a ton of time with your co-workers, and gossip tends to be a pretty normal part of human interaction.

But, when it concerns your coworkers, stay far away from gossip. You don’t want to be known as the person who will talk about everyone’s private lives behind their backs: that kind of reputation will make people far less likely to trust you in all ways, including in your ability to do your job.

It is almost guaranteed that you’ll run into gossip during your work life. You will probably also run into office politics, which is when people are maneuvering to gain advantage or support at work. Stay away from this, too: getting caught up in those kinds of situations is not going to help you.

4. Be Accountable

To be accountable means to be responsible for your decisions and actions. It means that you take responsibility for what you do. How does that translate to the workplace?

It means that when you’re assigned a task, you complete it. If you don’t complete it, you take responsibility for it, instead of blaming other people or outside factors. It is very much tied to your work ethic and your willingness to do the best work you can and accept the outcome of that work, whether good or bad.

If you’re willing to do that, to plunge into a task and do it the best of your ability, you will build a very solid professional reputation for yourself.

It can be difficult to identify how to behave professionally when you first start out at your job or placement. But with these universal rules, you’ll be well on the path to becoming a valued member of whatever organization you work for.

If you would like to learn more about the Algonquin College co-op program, please visit our website at https://www.algonquincollege.com/coop/, connect with us at coop@algonquincollege.com or call us at 613-727-4723 Ext.7623. You can also follow us on Twitter @AlgonquinCoop.

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