BUS603: Managing People

Professional development is directly related to the day-to-day activities of workers and should be part of a broader process of continuous learning. Professional development corresponds to the growth and maturation of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes acquired throughout the workers' lives, as a result of formal and informal actions of learning at work.

The literature indicates the relationship between formal training, learning at work, and everyday learning. Therefore, different forms of formal and informal learning at work are related to the development of human capital, and they are seen as complementary. The professional development process also involves the experiences and personal experiences that characterize the learning throughout the career.

Thus, we can consider that professional development is supported by Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory, characterized by a holistic perspective that combines experience, perception, cognition, and behavior. According to this theory, learning is the process by which knowledge is created through the transformation of experience into a cyclical model of learning, based on four successive stages: concrete experience, reflexive observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation.

The four stages of the learning cycle consider that experience is constructed by processes of intention, extension, apprehension, and understanding. In the logic of this model, concrete experiences impel an intentional reflexive action, transforming into an abstract conceptualization, which allows the experience of active experimentation. Thus, the process of professional development involves experience, observation, reflection, and transformation.

Professional development is thus composed of a series of events and activities related to a particular profession, creating or developing sets of skills, knowledge, and attitudes in the areas of people's performance. In this sense, the focus of the concept of professional development is on a combination of cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes, involving formal and informal learning strategies throughout the career.

Therefore, although in the Anglo-Saxon literature the concept of professional development is used, mainly to designate the activities of induced learning, a broader concept understands that it is a natural consequence of the different kinds of learning at work. In this broader view of the professional development process, it stems from formal or informal learning actions, being directly related to career progression. Thus, the concept of professional development encompasses a variety of practices, such as: activities in scientific societies; training processes, including acting as supervisor, coach, or leader (mentoring and monitoring of actions to students, subordinates, or new professionals); training and strategies for systematized and informal learning for skills development; in-service training; participation in communities of practice; participation in processes of continuous professional development; peer collaboration mediated by technological resources; mentoring programs; and specific leadership development programs.

But if, on the one hand, it makes sense to say that professional development derives from formal and informal learning-at-work actions, on the other hand, the antagonistic view of these two terms has been questioned, since it is an artificial polarization. In this chapter, we do not seek to separate such concepts or assign greater relevance to one or the other. We consider that both formal and informal learning can contribute to professional development, despite formal learning, in general, and receives more emphasis in the literature.

It is important to consider that the learning in the work stems from different actions and situations, and several of them involve reflection processes of the worker. A study with a wide variety of occupations and organizational contexts, showed that learning strategies contribute to professional development. The results of such research show that strategies for learning intrinsic and extrinsic reflection, seeking help from others and learning by trial and error are predictors of the perception of professional development. In addition, the trial-and-error learning strategy is moderated by work experience. The study also concluded that hours of training, seeking help from others, and educational level are predictors of perceived professional development.

The literature confirms, therefore, that the learning at work is influenced by the systematic actions of training and development, of the social interaction and the experiential learning. For this reason, the learning-at-work model is relevant to the study of professional development, since this model takes into account professional practice and addresses dimensions related to the content, incentive, and learning context. The constitutive logic of this model is that the learning at work assumes the character of skills development and stems from the acquisition of technical skills and the interaction between practice and elements of work identity.

Thus, the theoretical framework allows us to point out that professional development involves different kinds of learning, and experiential learning can be considered one of its most relevant theoretical foundations. Therefore, we can consider that professional development is based on the theory of experiential learning and more recent theories about learning in the work environment, which simultaneously consider variables of individuals and context.

This set of learning related to professional development occurs throughout the entire life of the worker, going through different stages. Thus, the strategies that most contribute to career development at the beginning of the career differ from those that contribute to the development of those who are in the stage of career consolidation or who already have a consolidated career. Although different elements - such as contextual elements, individual elements, and relational elements - can act as barriers or as drivers of people's professional development process, these elements have a different action throughout the career stages.

Professional development is therefore associated with the acquisition and development of competences involving cognitive, affective, and psychomotor processes. As a result, there are constant changes in terms of Knowledge (to know), Skills (know-how), and Attitudes (knowing how to be). It must also be considered that the process of professional development involves different stakeholders (workers, organizations, and society) and can be driven (pusher) or braked (barriers) by a set of contextual elements (job opportunities, type of organization, support received from peers and managers, characteristics of the socioeconomic environment, etc.), individual elements (initiative, dynamism, courage to risk, determination, resilience, etc.), or relational elements (network, work teams, etc.). Figure 1 summarizes different aspects related to the professional development process.

Figure 1. Professional development process.

In addition to different types of learning, the process of professional development may also be distinct for the professions. In this sense, it is necessary to understand that, besides the career phases and the individual characteristics, other variables - such as the professional formation - can influence the development process of the people.

Therefore, a contribution of the leaders to the professional development of their subordinates needs to take into account the individual characteristics of each one. Probably the actions that will contribute to the professional development of a doctor are not the same as those that will contribute to the development of an engineer or a lawyer. Leadership has a challenge of identifying the most relevant elements for each of their subordinates. Some leadership styles can provide support for this kind of action focusing on the individuals and the characteristics of each one, as we see in the next section.