Does professional citizenship resonate with you?

Hi Fiona, This is a very interesting subject and one which I can see resonates with all of us. As a HR professional of long-standing, I have now stopped telling people in social situations what I do - because every time I go to a party or wedding etc. if I answer that I am a People Manager -people ask "Is that HR?" and when I answer yes they always say "I would like to talk to you about something later on if you don`t mind?". What can I say? I reply yes of course. They find me wherever I am - usually whilst I`m just about to start on my delicious dinner in the middle of a conversation with an old friend I have n`t seen for ages and they start regaling me about the problems they are having with their manager or their workplace. And every time I feel sorry and either tell them what they should do or I give them my number so that they can call me. I have done this for many years and free of charge. One person even had the gall to tell me "I asked my lawyer but he wants £1,500 to fill in my ET1 but you will do it for me for free". I have found that my good works outside the workplace have impacted on my wellbeing. After all I deal with complex ER issues 50 hours per week, week in and week out, so going to a party over the weekend helps me unwind etc. Eventually any professional work outside the workplace or business can lead to burnout and I have to think about my health in this world of never switching off. After all do we ask a lawyer or a barrister to give us advice for free when they are not in their work setting. You will find that if we are professionals we have to take a leaf out of the lawyers page and behave professionally. That does not mean that I don`t help friends and family anyway with free advice - we all give back freely of our time and expertise - because that`s who we are. But the question is - if we are professionals - what are the boundaries. If our advice and time is so cheap - do we deserve to be called professionals?

Hi everyone - thanks so much for all your responses! It's great to hear your thoughts and feedback while we are exploring this idea. (And apologies if my own response is a little late - I have been off honeymooning!)

I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to share my own personal take on it, too. In my original post, I asked a provocative question about whether we have a duty to go beyond our roles to help others, but I think in reality, the kind of professional citizenship we are exploring at the CIPD isn't that prescriptive. It takes into account that we all have busy lives and at any one point, it might not be possible for us - physically or mentally - to do stuff outside of our roles. (I know that's something quite a few of you have picked up on too.) It still holds true to the idea that we have a duty to use our unique skills to help others, but in whatever way we can - whether that's improving your organisation's recruitment processes, having challenging conversations to effect change, giving advice to a friend, volunteering to help young people enter the labour market or leading a movement on gender equality. It's on a sliding scale and could well mean that for you - the way you make a difference right now is within your role, but at other times you might go beyond it. It gives us the room to make a difference in whatever way we can. Please share your thoughts - positive or negative - as we're still very much interested in hearing them.

My colleague Fiona is doing some further, more in-depth research to properly explore some of the ideas surfacing in this discussion - like a lot of you have spoken about feeling pressure from others to constantly give advice, the need for balance, that we should focus on helping others regardless of our profession - if you'd like to get involved please do contact her: f.scott@cipd.co.uk

Hello everyone
My personal point of view on professional citizenship is that it has to come as a natural extension of who we are and what we can contribute. It is neither an obligation nor a requirement but I believe it is necessary if we want a better world and improved society, if we want others to express organisational citizenship and performing the extra mile, I think we might and could role model.
As much as it is difficult to create a cultural and mindset shift incrementally by a single individual, I believe that a collective wave of sharing good practices through professional citizenship is a positive step of what a professional can do to contribute to society.
The concept resonates with me. I am thinking of doctors operating on a voluntary basis through the médecins sans frontières program or green ecologists, so why not HR professionals with their unique skill sets of establishing and improving interpersonal relationships?

Missed this first time around, but it's an interesting comment for me to read here now living in a tiny community on a remote island and working in HR for the largest employer - the government.

Working in HR here is different to the UK. You have to balance what's right for an individual and government, with what is right for the Island as a whole. If we fire a local for misconduct, they need to find a job somewhere on the island or inevitably we'll end up supporting them with welfare needs or even worse, in prison instead. If we decide not to renew the contract of one overseas-recruited member of staff, but their partner is working in an important locally-recruited role, with skills not available elsewhere on the island, then we might lose another valued member of the team. If I'm down the pub and someone comes to me a bit drunk with a HR issue that warrants investigation, I can't ignore what I know. I will have to speak to them again on Monday and take action..

Sometimes you have to take a very pragmatic approach and look at the bigger picture! My role goes beyond the walls of my office here.

Hi everyone,


I am a MA People Management and Development student. Professional citizenship is a very interesting concept to me. I have briefly read some of the comments on here and must mention that from the literature I have read on the topic, there is a distinction between volunteering and PC.

I have decided to do my dissertation on the concept. I am particularly interested to see how it could fit within HR, and to find out the impact PC could have on HR practitioners development and the community without being an additional activity to your roles.

If any of you have researched the concept further, I would like to discuss the findings with you as it could help me with my work. Please do contact me, Andreia Cardoso, at AL903@live.mdx.ac.uk.