Introduction

In the modern world the way in which business organisations and entities undertake their business operations has changed considerably in comparison to five years before. The modern business companies tend to rely more heavily on its employees despite a significant portion of the production line being automated. Today, business entities try to provide more training and workshop programs for its employees to develop their skills and knowledge base. However, such programs can only benefit for the organisation at the best possible levels if the employees conceive the importance of such programs and try to enhance their personal skills. One of the best ways to achieve higher efficiency is through self-reflection that helps the employees to identify the areas they need to work on (Knapp, Gottlieb & Handelsman, 2017). The following essay will be my understanding of why self-reflection is important and how it can provide better support for my personal development in the professional sector.

Discussion

Raison d’etre and the implication of professional reflective practice: The term “raison d’etre refers to the purpose of a person’s existence. This helps a person to understand what she is supposed to do. I think understanding the implications of one’s existence is vital to have a true purpose in life, which can often be a strong motivation to function or undertake daily responsibilities with enthusiasm (Dunning, Heath & Suls, 2018). For me it is very important to know what I am supposed to do so that I can plan y course of action efficiently and can decide on the activities and operations that are essential to complete the objectives with precision. Raison d’etre can also be considered to as the justification for existence which to me is considered as a situation where a person should provide arguments in favour of her or his existence. I think in the professional sector this factor is even more complex than how it may seem and should be given ample focus by the individual for professional development.

I think professional reflective practice should be given more attention in the professional field just like any other field of work. I think that it is almost impossible for any person to have a complete knowledge or understanding of every single aspect of their professional area. Despite the many training programs and workshops undertaken by business organisations having an all-around knowledge is still rare for an industry (Rosen, McCall & Goodkind, 2017). An employee should identify this lack of knowledge as an area of potential development of the professional skills. To do this, I think it is very important to make sure that employees use reflective practices to identify their drawback areas and such practices can also help me to work in a better environment. For example my professional reflection helped me to analyse my conditions in Romania and helped me to understand how dealing with rude people was making my mental wellbeing stressful in my previous work space. I think professional reflection not only helps the employees to develop their skills but also helps them to be in an environment where they can address various issues to maximise their work efficiency.

Using professional reflective practice in professional environment: In a professional environment, I think, it is important for an employee to evaluate her or his own efficiency to understand whether he or she is able to meet the organisational criteria and meet his responsibilities with proper tools and skills. The skill sets required of an employee varies significantly based on the nature and type of the business conducted by the organisation or company (Chow & Luzzeri, 2019). This makes reflective practices even more important to identify the drawbacks and strengths in the context of the industry requirements. For me I work in a sector which requires me to interact with the customers on a daily basis and help them to resolve the various issue they are facing as a member of the community and the society. Hence, for me using reflective tools and practices is very important to me that can help me to develop my communication skills further. This in turn can help me to understand my customers’ requirements in better ways and can also ensure that I can provide better assistance to them and benefit them.

My professional environment is dynamic and requires me to undertake many different responsibilities based on the necessities of the customers. In many cases I may have to deal with a situation or issue that I may not have encountered before. Thus, for me to be open to different problem solving abilities is a must in my work environment is important which I can achieve by reflecting on my activities as the part of the industry and organisation (Gilliam et al., 2019). This helps me to evaluate my abilities by putting them at the test in the work environment which in turn can benefit me by identifying my drawbacks and an employee of the sector.

Purpose of reflective practice in achieving career objectives: For my professional sector, the objectives are often versatile and dynamic in nature which changes in accordance to the nature of the requirements of the customers. My nature of work requires me to interact with many customers face-to-face to solve their problems and increase the value of their purchase of the product or services. Thus, in such a dynamic work environment, achieving the goals and objectives may be challenging which will also make the attainment of the career goals to become difficult. I think reflective practices in the workplace can be of great help for me to correctly undertake my roles as an employee of the sector (Ardelt & Grunwald, 2018). I also wish to progress in my professional career to become a public services officer in the future. As a student of this industry I must be able to fulfil the requirements of my customers. This factor can be achieved with better self-reflective practices so that my understanding of the customers can be increased. I also want to work in a position that would allow me to benefit more people with my expertise and services, which makes it essential for me to constantly reflect on my functions, activities and associate the same with my job requirements to understand how much I have been able to achieve or the efficiency of my functions. This can help me to analyse the chain of events and be able to come up with an alternate method that could be used to solve the issue faster. Such reflection can help to develop my skills and increase my efficiency significantly.

My workplace provides me with the opportunity to provide my assistance and support that can benefit the customers by generating and adding maximum value to the products or services that they purchased. As a student I already understand that my area of work can affect many people at the same time, which makes it important for me to be able to identify the best possible solution to an issue as early as possible so that I can minimise the response time and provide maximum benefits.

Models of reflection and how can it help my personal and professional development: There are various reflective models that can be used by me to emphasise on the need for developing my skills using self-reflective practices. These models are elaborated below:

Gibb’s reflective model: In this model, the necessities of self-reflective practices are elaborated and how the same can help an employee to become better. The Reflective Cycle, as elaborated by Graham Gibbs says that an employee has the opportunity to learn more regarding the activities he or she experiences regularly. Thus, in a changing environment reflecting on the experiences can help an employee to understand better regarding what she or he did to meet the responsibilities and how it could be made more efficient by adopting a new method in future instead of the one applied already. The cycle is divided into five phases and can be used through a mentor-mentee scenario (Sekarwinahyu et al., 2019). The mentor can ask the employee to define a situation and then come up with viable solutions. For my case the scenario can be done by myself so that a self-reflective condition can be achieved. I can use this model extensively to evaluate a scenario and then go through the options that I have to tackle the issue so that the best solution can be identified based on the unique criteria of the situation.

Schon model: This is another model that can be of great help for my professional career progress. This model allows for flexibility within the project management process based on the condition at any given point. I think I can use this model to both reflect on my experience while undertaking a project and also be able to reflect on a completed project to identify the mistakes and benefits at each step (Gordon, 2017). This can help me to compare and contrast between two scenarios and find a more efficient alternative in the future.

Conclusion

From the above discussion regarding self reflective practices in the workplace, it can be concluded that I understand the necessity of reflection at work and also fathom how such practices can benefit my career in the future in the domain of public services. I will be using self-reflection as a way to make sure to constantly evaluate my performance for better efficiency.