CPD, or Continuing Professional Development, is a vital tool for anyone serious about their career. Whether you’re planning a career change, aiming for a promotion, or simply looking to grow professionally, CPD plays a key role in helping you move forward. It’s not just about gaining new skills—it’s about staying relevant, competitive, and confident in an ever-evolving job market.
In this guide, we’ll explain what CPD really means, explore its benefits, and share practical strategies for effectively implementing it, whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your career to the next level.
What is CPD?
Firstly, what is CPD? In simple terms, CPD is a series of learning activities designed to improve your skills and knowledge in your field. While CPD can be formal training, it is a term that encompasses a variety of learning opportunities, ranging from workshops to videos and e-learning.
Types of CPD
CPD can be divided into two main categories: formal and informal. Formal CPD training is either paid for or facilitated by your company, while informal CPD is training or research done on your own time.
Formal CPD
Many types of formal CPD training are things you have probably heard of, or already done yourself. Seminars, workshops, professional conferences, and university courses would all constitute formal CPD training.
Formal CPD training is often the better choice as you can receive a higher level of training, and oftentimes, you won’t have to pay for it or organize it yourself. You will also get to work more closely with professionals in the field, gaining invaluable knowledge and experience in the process.
Informal CPD
As mentioned before, informal CPD training is activities, research, and work, done on your own time. This can involve things such as reading industry journals, watching informational videos or how-to guides, attending networking events, and volunteering.
Informal CPD is the better choice if you are in a business where formal CPD opportunities are limited or if you don’t qualify for them. While still beneficial for those with years of experience in their field, informal CPD is great for people new to their industry or looking to build their skills in a field that isn’t related to their current career.
However, it is important to note that informal CPD training can not outweigh its formal counterpart when it comes to fields such as medicine or law. This is because there are much stricter work guidelines to follow, and you need formal qualifications to progress in fields such as these.
Benefits
There are a multitude of benefits to CPD, but here are a few of the best and most important ones.
Skill Enhancement
The first benefit, and the one most people focus on, is skill enhancement. CPD allows you to build and improve your existing skills and develop new ones that you can use in your current position, or as a bridge if you want to start a new career journey.
Improving your skills not only makes you better at your job but can also lead to a promotion, too. If you are looking for a career change, being able to do CPD through your company often means you won’t have to pay for it, and you can be hired internally for the new position.
Professional Confidence
As you improve your skills and knowledge in your field, your professional confidence will inevitably improve. This benefit should not be understated, especially if you are in a high-stress or customer-facing role.
If you are better equipped to deal with serious situations, or simply better at dealing with customers and clients, you will become an essential part of your company in no time at all.
Innovation & Problem-Solving
When you are exposed to new skills, information, methodologies, etc, you will also become better at innovating and problem solving. Innovation, no matter how small, can make a big difference to your career and your company as a whole.
Being fantastic at problem-solving is also invaluable. There are plenty of professions where you will regularly encounter new challenges, and knowing the best and most effective way to handle these challenges provides a net benefit to everyone.
Career Progress
Speaking of career progress, this is another one of the major benefits that people focus on when doing CPD. As mentioned, it can lead to a promotion, but it can also help you start your journey down a route your current position doesn’t offer.
That second part is a great motivator to start CPD, as more often than not, there will be skills or fields you want to explore, but can’t because your current job simply doesn’t allow it. Coding, for instance, is not something you will do as a hotel receptionist, but it can be greatly beneficial to those wanting to create hotel management software or something similar.
Career Change
Another aspect that should be considered is the ability to change your career through CPD. For instance, learning to code not only improves your current CV but also allows you to get hired as a software developer within your company or somewhere else.
A career change can be difficult at the best of times, but being able to use formal CPD training will give you the best shot at success.
Keep Pace with Colleagues
Whether in your own company or the competition, CPD allows you to keep pace with colleagues in similar fields. When it comes to finding a new career and applying, being able to stand out from the crowd is a must.
Effective CPD Strategies
Now that you know a few of the main benefits of CPD, here are three of the best strategies to use to get the most out of it.
Set Goals
The first thing you need to do is to set goals. More often than not, CPD won’t have a specific end goal, like an exam or something similar, and therefore, you need to set your own goals to focus on and achieve.
This is particularly important if you partake in CPD that is ongoing and takes a few months, as the last thing you want to do is go weeks without doing anything, and then try to cram work or study in over a few days.
Mix Formal & Informal Study
Don’t get stuck in the idea that formal training is the only way to go, no matter which industry you are in. With the internet and a smartphone or laptop, you can learn about almost anything, no matter where you are.
Combining both formal and informal training will give you a holistic understanding of your chosen field, with both providing some information that you wouldn’t necessarily find out if you only undertook one approach.
Reflect
A simple but useful step is to always reflect on what you are learning during and after your training sessions. Analyze how the training applies to your career, how you can leverage it, and most importantly, what steps you should take next.
Training can easily open you up to new routes of learning you didn’t know existed beforehand, and there’s a good chance these new opportunities can be more beneficial than the ones you originally chose.
Job Shadowing
If and when possible, it is always best to try to job-shadow when you can. While you don’t have to get hands-on with anything, simply following someone around during their day-to-day activities can give you great insight into what you should be focusing on.
While doing your training, and when combined with feedback, you won’t know if what you are doing is leading you in the right direction until someone in the know tells you.
Feedback
Another thing you should focus on is feedback. This is crucial for determining where you can make improvements and which sectors require extra work and time.
You can get this feedback from colleagues, supervisors, managers, or mentors. All of these can help you establish your progress, where you can improve, and which direction your new skills and knowledge can take you.
Join Professional Organizations
Finally, take the time to research and join professional organizations in the field you are in or working towards. This will give you the chance to network, rub shoulders with experts in the field, and open you up to new learning opportunities.
Put Your Skills to the Test
This won’t apply to every field, but when and if possible, put your new skills and knowledge to the test whenever you can. Once again, using coding as an example, take the time to create a functioning app or a tool your company can use for a particular purpose.
The best way to see if your training, whether formal or informal, is having the desired effect is to put it into action. Depending on your field, this may not always be possible, but speak to a manager and see if they could give you any “test” scenarios that will allow you to practice and find out where you can improve.
Conclusion
No matter your field of work, CPD can drastically improve your skills and career prospects. Whether you are a teacher looking to improve your teaching methods or a graphic designer wanting to expand your horizons, CPD can and will give you the tools and knowledge to make you better at your job and more valuable to those you work for.
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