Introduction

Many Australians spend millions of dollars per year on complementary medicine. Successful professional practice in the alternative medicine field means having a high level of technical, business and personal skills in an ever changing profession. Practitioners must ascertain a certain level of competency, adhere to basic ethics and laws, uphold a high level of workplace standards, provide up to date knowledge and treatments to patients, as well as constantly reassessing themselves and looking to improve their businesses. All these provide for a high level of customer satisfaction.

Code of Ethics
To avoid civil and criminal consequences, registration with the Nutrition Society of Australia (NSA) is imperative for a practicing Nutritionist. NSAs code of ethics can be found on the homepage of their website, www.nsa.asn.au. It states (2010) that a nutritionist must; 1. Maintain the highest standards of scientific honesty, integrity, and fairness. 2. Disclose any real or potential conflicts of interest. 3. Use scientific principles and current knowledge in their nutrition-related activities and recognize the need for continual critical evaluation of nutrition Science. 4. Maintain a high standard of professional competence. 5. Provide services with objectivity of judgment based upon substantiated Information, recognizing that legitimate differences of opinion may exist. 6. Respect confidential information. 7. Avoid adverse comment upon the character, competence or integrity of Members of the Society. 8. Acknowledge and discharge a responsibility for the professional development and support of other members of the Society 9. Not engage in conduct likely to bring the Society into disrepute. 10. Not promote or endorse nutritional practices in a false, misleading or unethical Manner. Abiding by ethical and legal obligations will provide benefit to all members of the profession, their clients, other practitioners and the general public.

Services Provided
I will provide a specialist Nutritional Medicine practice, which I will be opening full time as a sole trader. This will involve meeting clients and assessing their nutritional needs, and offer a dietary appraisal. I have chosen to outline the business in this way as this will offer me the flexibility of low administrational duties and at the same time being able to offer clients a more personalized service.

Professional Responsibilities
To avoid any acts of negligence within the workplace, a nutritionist must maintain a certain level of interest in current developments in their profession. By doing so they are able to properly inform clients of treatment(s) required, of any new methods of treatment available, and also of risks involved with proceeding with treatment. A professional nutritionist must always remember to obtain consent for any forms of treatment, liaison with other practitioners or medical specialists or testing facilities. Nutritionists and their clients work as a partnership to achieve the clients health goals. Any recommendation, advice or supplementary support offered by a Nutritionist can only be effective when

there is trust and an open dialogue and agreement established between both parties.

Workplace Standards
A business is only as strong as its employees. A business must always put in place procedures and policies in regards to maintaining a certain level of performance and behavior amongst staff. Such principles include that of natural justice and procedural fairness The principles of natural justice are:

All parties will have the right to be heard and judged without bias All issues are investigated thoroughly and justly

The principles of procedural fairness are:

The standards of conduct or job performance required will be made clear to the staff member by documentation or during interviews The staff member will be made aware of the likely next steps in the event that satisfactory performance or conduct is or is not maintained The staff member will be afforded the right to be accompanied and represented by an employee representative at discussions or interviews at any level of the discipline process When a complaint about performance or conduct is brought to the supervisors attention by a third party, the substance of the complaint will be verified before any action is taken on the matter

Its important to set out all expectations at the beginning, thus preventing any unexpected conflicts. When dealing with workplace standards, early intervention and informal discussions regarding any issues arising commonly will smooth out any creases.

Creating a Culture of Communication

Good communication is crucial for a healthy working relationship between staff. Encouraging personal contact is important as when conversing with each other in person, one is able to read body language of the other person. This will help to avoid any miscommunication that can occur via email, text, and phone. When personal contact isnt available workplaces should encourage Skype style meetings and communications, which offers a similar level of personalization. Remembering to always remain courteous in all communications incoming, outgoing, and within the business will ensure that patients, other professionals, and co-workers know that they are appreciated. Another point to remember when creating a culture of communication is always being consistent, compromising, and attentive. These will all ensure certain levels of interpersonal relationships are maintained.

Working relationships
Establishing effective relationships with different modalities of health in the local area will be beneficial for business in that it can offer a lot of referral based work. Effective relationships should be built with General Practitioners, chiropractic clinics, masseuses, acupuncturists, herbal medicine practitioners, hospitals Chinese medicine providers, as well as local businesses such as gyms, group fitness centers, PCYC centres, learning institutions. Networking is very important as it can provide for growth within the business.

Keeping up to Date
As a medical professional working in the Nutritional field, it is important to always keep up to date with current events as this will not only help in maintaining a high level of customer service, it will also provide for being more socially engaging when with clients. Memberships should be made with the NSA (Nutritionists Society of Australia), who provides members with email updates on current news & events in the industry, as well as hosting a number of nutritional events/workshops available to members. Signing up to Medscape will offer updates on general health breakthroughs. Events such as Filex (held once yearly in Melbourne) provide samples, guest speakers, new ideas, workshops, as well as advertising for new services available in the health and fitness industry. Attending or setting up a stall at such events will provide a networking/enhancement opportunity for businesses in the industry. There are numerous organizations within the health industry aimed at professionals and nonprofessionals alike, and in an industry where its imperative to be ahead of the pack, joining the right circles will help any business flourish.

Evaluation
In its typical Latin sense, evaluation means to strengthen. Evaluation measures should cover the individual level as well as the organization as a whole. The individual needs to be assessed according to their level of achievement of performance standards. Internal & external surveys should be made where perceptions regarding customer service, deadline meeting, level of work etc are able to be voiced. A consultation should be made with employees where discussion remains open in regards to suggestions, problems arisen, and variations which were made in work processes. From there, a new performance standard can be built together. Organizational levels of evaluation can include employee turnover, absenteeism levels, the amount of stress leave claims made, employee satisfaction and levels of output.

Maintaining a work life balance

Nobody wants to be miss out on spending time with loved ones, or being able to unwind because they are working too much. Good skills in time management will ensure that everything is done on time, leaving the weekends for play, not catch-up. Also sometimes learning to say no can be important. Feelings of guilt can lead to saying yes too often to doing things outside the typical role we are set in. Providing boundaries will avoid feelings of resentment later on down the track. Focus on your four life quadrants work, family, friends and self each are equally important, and when you master setting aside time for each equally is when youll be happy.

Goal setting
Goal setting is part of the career planning process. Making long term and short term goals can help keep a certain level of motivation when aiming to reach particular levels, such as a certain amount of income, a certain job position etc. Its also easy to make the mistake of setting goals without being clear on how exactly youre going to get there. The actions you take to reach your goals are crucial and must be clearly outlined on a career action plan to be effectively adhered to.

Conclusion
Effective practices in the workplace can mean the difference between a flourishing business and an average one. Setting goals, putting in place processes and policies and correct methods of evaluation can aid tremendously when looking towards the future growth of a company. In the nutritional field, as well as all other contemporary medicine, it is important to always stay on top of current affairs to ascertain a certain degree of respect amongst clients and other professionals alike. Nutritional medicine

is fast becoming clear to be a crucial component of good health. What goes in to the body can either be its best medicine or its slowest killer, and society on the whole is slowly beginning to realize that.

Bibliography
http://www.nsa.asn.au/useruploads/files/core_society_documents/code_of_ethics_current.pdf http://www.hr.uwa.edu.au/policy/toc/performance_management_of_staff/guidelines_for_handling_uns atisfactory_job_performance_and_unsatisfactory_jobrelated_behaviour_general_staff http://top7business.com/?Top-7-Keys-to-Successful-WorkplaceCommunication&id=1016 http://www.workplaceinfo.com.au/human-resources-management/work-lifebalance/evaluating-the-impact-of-flexible-work-practices