Information on the syllabus structure and content for the Ethics and Professional Skills Module.
This unit of the module introduces you to the broad ethical and professional values which underpin professional skills and behaviours. Ethical and professional values provide a framework and a moral compass for an accountant and help guide their professional behaviours.
The personal effectiveness unit explains how you can work efficiently by prioritising, organising and managing your time effectively. It contains sections on how to organise successful meetings and how to make the best use of technology, including spreadsheets and data analytics, to find effective solutions to business issues. The unit concludes by considering the importance of maintaining professional competence and pursuing life-long learning.
This unit is specifically about how we communicate effectively with others in a business environment, including clients, customers, colleagues and external authorities. This unit covers patterns and channels of communication and how effective these are in different contexts and the associated methods and skills involved in advising, supporting, motivating and influencing others.
This unit of the module introduces the concept of commercial awareness as the ability to view situations from a commercial or business perspective, considering factors that influence the success of a business and an understanding of the business processes, relationships, risks and costs. Commercial awareness requires an ability to analyse the business environment, externally and internally, to evaluate available data and information from a variety of sources, some of which may not be relevant. You then will be able to identify opportunities, problems and observe trends and make suitable recommendations based on these.
This unit of the module introduces leadership and working in teams. The unit explores different type of leadership approaches and qualities of effective leaders which can be adopted or adapted at any level of the organisation. This unit also demonstrates how effective leadership involves inspiring, motivating and supporting teams to work effectively and efficiently, making the most of the individuals within them.
This unit of the module introduces you to the broad ethical and professional values which underpin professional skills and behaviours. Ethical and professional values provide a framework and a moral compass for an accountant and help guide their professional behaviours.
This unit is intended to give you an appreciation of the importance and usefulness of data analytics to business and how it can be applied to the accountant’s role. The unit explains how to use commercial awareness to articulate business questions, and then identify, manipulate, and analyse relevant data by applying appropriate techniques. Following sceptical analysis of the data, valid conclusions can be drawn and recommendations made. The unit also explains how findings from analysis should be effectively visualised and communicated and finally it considers the ethical and security issues associated with data analytics.
In this unit, the professional skills developed in the previous six units are tested. You will be put in the position of a qualified accountant applying for a role as the head of accounting at another organisation. That organisation faces a range of new environmental threats, which you as head of accounting have to analyse and evaluate.
In the unit you will undertake a series of tasks including analysing your workload to ensure you can achieve your objectives, preparing calculations and reviewing a report to the board of directors outlining the financial and business implications of the new situation that your business finds itself. You will also need to recommend how to reorganise your department to save costs and manage the people retained within the department most effectively. You will also be given the responsibility for chairing a strategy development sub-committee to evaluate possible strategies to take the business forward successfully
This unit is about explaining the links between EPSM and SBL and other Strategic Professional exams and how EPSM supports learning at Strategic Professional. The unit explains what the Strategic Business Leader and other Strategic Professional exams require in terms of professionalism and how EPSM helps students prepare for these exams. The unit highlights the knowledge and skills in EPSM which most closely link to the content in the SP exams, particularly SBL, but also other Strategic Professional exams and how to demonstrate general professional skills while demonstrating technical skills.
Dynamic question bank
14 questions – two objective test questions from each of the first seven units.
Pass mark 50%