6. Handout 4 - Five Core Rules for Professional and Healthy Workers

Excerpt from handout on Core Rules for workers

Some Core Rules that guide the Empowered Work Counseling model for workers are:

1. Work is a two way relationship where the worker’s needs are met in exchange for the worker meeting some of the employer’s needs.

Work is defined by the two way relationship rule. The worker's and employer's needs are important concepts, beyond just pay, benefits, and labor provided.

2. To the worker, the most important thing about any job is if the employer is meeting the worker’s own specific personal work needs.

In fact, the worker can best identify how "good" or "healthy" a workplace is by how well it is meeting the worker's personal needs.

3. A worker’s current needs are important, and should not be sacrificed for future needs of career growth. An effective employer will meet both.

If the worker's current needs are unmet, they are suffering and may not have the material conditions met that are required to improve. They are then less effective as a worker as well, so the employer has a major interest in meeting the worker's current needs. It is a disempowering work belief and myth that workers "should" or "must" sacrifice current needs for growth related needs.

4. A healthy and professional worker will never work when unpaid by an employer, or sacrifice their own needs for the employer; and an effective employer will not ask this of the worker.

Professional workers and ethical employers do not work unpaid, whether through legal or illegal means. This can be anything from wage theft and workplace abuse to salary traps.

5. Workers have value from their work and history of work, but this is only expressed and realized not through work itself, but by engaging in job seeking regularly. This way the worker is meeting their developing needs while finding employers that meet their growing value.

Value is another important concept, because a worker must be able to identify their own value to effectively navigate that their needs are met. A worker who believes they have no or little value cannot approach job seeking tasks effectively.