In tag-clarification-ethics-vs-etiquette-vs-professionalism we discussed the similarities between Etiquette and Professionalism.
Jim made the point that etiquette and professionalism could be defined as:
Etiquette:
- conventional requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion.
- a prescribed or accepted code of usage in matters of ceremony, as at a court or in official or other formal observances.
- the code of ethical behavior regarding professional practice or action among the members of a profession in their dealings with each other: medical etiquette. (looks like there is a bit of overlap between ethics and etiquette)
Professionalism:
the standing, practice, or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur.
But if we really look at the definitions it seems that professionalism is essentially etiquette in the workplace! and given that all questions here is about the workplace, these tags are essentially one in the same.
Moving away from the definitions lets have a look at the current tag definitions on the site itself. We have:
Etiquette: The set of written and unwritten rules of conduct that make social interactions run more smoothly.
and
Professionalism: Professionalism refers to how you come across to others in a work environment.
So one of these talks about social interactions and the other about how you come across to others, during social interactions....oh.
To exacerbate the problem lets have a look at the questions being asked:
Picking the top voted etiquette question we can see that it is actually also the top voted professionalism question. hmm, so they aren't defined differently, or really used differently either.
So the best way to make my point would be to get you to look at all the questions tagged etiquette, if you can find one tagged etiquette, that wouldn't make sense to be re-tagged professionalism then please point it out! I've had a cursory glance and I see no questions that benefit from being differentiated as etiquette, rather than professionalism.
Here are a few examples:
how-can-i-ask-my-interviewers-for-feedback-following-an-interview Tagged etiquette, but this is a question about how you are presenting yourself in a professional situation.
is-it-considered-rude-to-turn-down-a-job-after-initially-accepting-it Tagged etiquette, but this is essentially another question on how you are viewed in a professional environment.
Taking all of this into consideration I suggest the following course of action.
Redefine the tags
The definition for Professionalism should be changed, as 'Professionalism refers to how you come across to others in a work environment.' is a bit vague, instead i suggest the following:
Questions referring to how one presents themselves and interacts with others in a professional environment
A professional environment is then considered any place where you are on the clock, be it at the office, in an interview, at a client site, or even during team activities outside of hours. As everything you do in these times affects your professional image
Etiquette on the other hand would be redefined as:
Questions referring to how one presents themselves and interacts with others outside of the professional environment
Because professionalism is essentially etiquette but in a professional environment. The problem then is that etiquette is to be used for non work environments, but ALL of our questions should be about the professional environment, we are the workplace after all.
So this folds back to my main point. Questions tagged etiquette should be re-tagged with professionalism and the etiquette tag should then be removed. The two tags are currently being used interchangeably and the fact that this is now at least the third meta post about it there is clearly some confusion that we should work to mitigate