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July 21, 2021
July 7, 2021
You may think that once you’ve landed your dream role and you’re comfortably in your groove that you don’t need to worry about anything else, and you can sit back and relax. However, you may want to think again, as you could end up lagging behind your colleagues who might have CPD experience.
CPD, or continuing professional development, essentially ensures that you continue to be proficient and competent in your profession while also furnishing you with essential skills that could help you progress with your career. It’s not just a one-stop-shop, either – it continues and develops throughout your career.
So whether you’re looking to succeed as a newly qualified teacher or you’re starting out in nursing, CPD can make you shine. Let’s take a closer look at just how CPD can help you do that.
Continued professional development, or CPD for short, is the term used to describe the supplementary learning that professionals undertake. Usually, CPD helps to augment and enhance their abilities in the workplace. However, it encompasses much more than simply learning.
Rather than being passive and reactive, CPD makes learning conscious and proactive, to enhance personal skills for application in the workplace. In addition, there are a variety of different methodologies involved, such as workshops, conferences, and e-learning or online courses.
By engaging in CPD, you’ll ensure that neither your academic nor your practical qualifications will become obsolete. CPD offers you the opportunity for upskilling, regardless of where you are in your career, your age, or even your level of education.
Not only does CPD help to enhance your skillset, but it also enables you to adapt to changes in the work environment too. In an ever-changing world, engaging in CPD can help you prepare for the jobs of the future, while also showing your commitment to self-development and professionalism.
Albert Einstein said, ‘education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think’ – and this is certainly true when it comes to the existence of CPD. Ensuring that your skills and abilities are enhanced and expanded upon beyond formal education will permit proficiency and efficiency within your skillset.
CPD takes the learning process an extra step, ensuring that the way you’re learning – and what you’re learning – is structured, practical, and relevant. When you start in a specific industry in a new role, you will likely have completed your academic qualifications. CPD takes further steps in the learning process and allows you to focus on any specific skills and knowledge – usually over a short time period.
By focusing on these skills over, say, a 12 month period, you’ll end up more certain of a recognizable improvement in your skillset and proficiency. So, for instance, by focussing on the skills of the future, you can ensure your career progression is secure.
So what are the benefits of CPD? While you may think that your education and the skills you end up learning on the job will supply you with all the relevant skills you require, CPD can really level up your profile. This can help avoid the skills gap – something that’s as important for employers as it is for you.
With employers facing huge losses due to skills gaps, by engaging in professional development, you can quickly and easily build the skill sets required by your organisation. And by continuing your professional development, you continue to learn and develop, keeping your skills and knowledge up to date.
Let’s take a look at a few of the benefits that professional development can give you.
The world of work is constantly changing. Especially in the last 18 months, with the events of 2020, working from home has become the norm, and various pieces of software and technology have had to be embraced to adjust to this unprecedented change. Keeping up to date with trends has never been more important, and by failing to do so, your skills could become outdated.
Owing to your increased knowledge, you can become much more effective in the workplace, which will open doors to career progression. Plus, you can use your increased knowledge to demonstrate your leadership skills by sharing your knowledge with others.
Refreshing your knowledge and understanding of certain skill-specific topics can make you stand out from the crowd, and can also help dust off any skills that you may have let fall down by the wayside. As such, you’re well-placed to provide a better service.
By taking part in CPD, you can stay up to speed with all the different changes involving technology and everything else in your industry. For instance, in the healthcare profession, technology is continually being introduced, changed, and created, to improve people’s health. Having a knowledge of these pieces of technology will keep you and your employer a step ahead of the competition.
Everyone can end up jaded in their professions – but by engaging in CPD, you can open yourself up to new skill areas and fresh knowledge, encouraging you to stay engaged and interested in your role. This refreshed interest and intrigue regarding your role will make you more effective and engaged, leading to higher rates of productivity and efficiency.
More often than not, the responsibility for engaging in continuing professional development lies with the individual. This can show that you have initiative and are looking to progress, two things that employers will notice. However, as issues with skills gaps continue, more and more employers are starting to encourage their employees to engage in CPD.
There is a common misunderstanding among many employers that learning at work, and engaging in CPD, will take too much time and effort. In recent years, however, more flexible CPD options have come to the fore, and the combination of online learning, workshops, events, and even exhibitions can provide much-needed professional development as well as networking opportunities.
Hiring managers are seeing the need to hire better skilled, more motivated, and more committed employees, and with these often in short demand, CPD can give employers the opportunity to offer focused and relevant CPD – whether that’s via their links to professional bodies and institutes or independently.
Learning is a process that continues throughout your life, and by engaging in continuing professional development, you can ensure continued success in your career. Often it is the people who engage in CPD who become integral members of a company, as they continuously strive for new ideas and new developments.
Due to its proactive nature and relentless drive to make excellent professional education accessible to millions of people around the world, the Metropolitan School of Business and Management (MSBM UK) has come up with a suite of over 100 professional development courses for our learners to benefit from.
These courses are short, affordable, and 100% online, to allow for our learners to learn at their own pace and make significant strides in their careers. Find out more here
As businesses and professionals become more specialized, being up to speed with the latest developments in your field has never been more important, and CPD is a great way of staying competitive in the continually changing world of business. So why not start your journey today? Register here
Source: Future Learn
Image Source: Getty Images
