Continuing Professional Development CPD Continuing Professional Development

CPD What? Why? How?

What is CPD? “a planned and structured approach to the maintenance and upgrading of … skills” Source http://www.cpduk.co.uk/ CPD is the term used for the work environment Institutions such as colleges and universities tend to talk about PDP (Personal Development Plan) Both involve the same core ideas

What is CPD? an educational system which seeks to: operate throughout the working life of a professional mirror the requirements imposed upon professionals by their … organisations and … by their clients operate in a systematic and structured manner cover the full range of knowledge and skills, personal, technical and commercial, required by a professional in his or her working life Key points here are: Continuous - throughout the practitioner’s working life Professional/Organisation focused – necessary for the execution of professional and technical duties and related to maintaining the quality and relevance of professional services Broad Based – knowledge and skills and the development of personal qualities Structured – systematic maintenance, improvement and broadening of the knowledge and skills base

Why is CPD important? What can you gain by engaging in CPD? What could you lose by NOT engaging in CPD? Discuss!

Recent business changes affecting individuals Yesterday Expectation of a "job for life“ Develop a single specialist skill Vertical promotion "Keep your head down“ Single employer (for entire career) Careers planned Today Reality "no job is safe“ Multiple skills required Horizontal/lateral movement "Innovate and take risks“ Multiple employers (portfolio of careers) Plan your own career

Identifying Personal Development Needs Define where you are now in terms of your personal, technical and commercial knowledge and skills Define where you need to be in the same terms The gap is your development need.

Activity: Defining your development needs Choose one of your leisure activities e.g. football, computer games and carry out these tasks: Rate your current performance out of 10 (be honest!) Say what you would like to improve Think of one or more ways that you could do this Define a realistic timescale for doing this Define the resources needed to achieve this Assignment 1 will involve the students creating a Personal Development Plan related to their college work. This activity designed to get them thinking about the PDP process. If they say that just need to, say, practice computer games more perhaps suggest researching walkthroughs, tutorials, discussing tactics with better players etc.

Identifying Personal Development needs Self assessment Looking at your own strengths & weaknesses Formal reports Appraisal schemes Other Customer feedback e.g. satisfaction questionnaires Statistical data e.g. no. of calls answered in a call centre

Self Assessment SWOT analysis Feedback from friends / colleagues Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Feedback from friends / colleagues See SWOT handout Feedback from friends & colleagues can be tricky. Are they being honest?

Appraisal schemes Regular review sessions 6 monthly / yearly Review historical performance Previous targets achieved? Why/why not? Set SMART targets for next period Work Development You could show them the college appraisal system here but I don’t think they will be interested and probably don’t have enough work experience to be able to put it into context. Definition(s) of SMART Specific Specific in the context of developing objectives means that an observable action, behavior or achievement is described which is also linked to a rate, number, percentage or frequency. This latter point is extremely important - let me illustrate. 'Answer the phone quickly' can be said to be a precise description of behavior, you can clearly see whether someone answers the phone or not, but there is no rate, number, percentage or frequency linked to it. So, if I state; 'Answer the phone within 3 rings' a rate has been added and the behavior is now much more specific. Summary: Is there a description of a precise or specific behavior / outcome which is linked to a rate, number, percentage or frequency? Measurable A system, method or procedure has to exist which allows the tracking and recording of the behavior or action upon which the objective is focused. Setting an objective that requires phone calls to be answered in three rings is fine, provided a system exists which measures whether this is actually being achieved. If none exists the manager must be prepared to set time aside time to actually monitor the response rates to incoming phone calls. The only other alternative is to get the person with whom the objectives are being set to measure their own progress; in some cases and situations it may be acceptable to do this, in others maybe not - use common sense to decide this. Summary: Is there a reliable system in place to measure progress towards the achievement of the objective? Achievable The objectives that are set with people need to be capable of being reached, put most basically; there is a likelihood of success but that does not mean easy or simple. The objectives need to be stretching and agreed by the parties involved. Setting targets that are plainly ridiculous does not motivate people; it merely confirms their opinion of you as an idiot. They will apply no energy or enthusiasm to a task that is futile. Consider sending a group of footballers out to play a game having told them the final score already, and they've lost! What's the point? So don't do it. (Some people feel that Agreed should stand for the definition of A in SMART. But as this relates to the process of communicating and deciding the objective rather than a definition of the content it seems out of context in relation to the rest of the criteria and consequently I do not use it. I concur however that objectives should indeed be agreed between involved participants rather than enforced.) Summary: With a reasonable amount of effort and application can the objective be achieved? Relevant This means two things; that the goal or target being set with the individual is something they can actually impact upon or change and secondly it is also important to the organization. Example: Telling the cleaners that they 'have to increase market share over the next financial quarter' is not actually something they can do anything about - it's not relevant to them. However, asking them to reduce expenditure on cleaning materials by £50 over the next three months is entirely relevant to them. It's what they spend their budget on every day. As to whether it's relevant to what the organization is trying to achieve, the manager has to decide this by considering the wider picture. Summary: Can the people with whom the objective is set make an impact on the situation? Do they have the necessary knowledge, authority and skill? Time framed In the objective somewhere there has to be a date (Day/Month/Year) for when the task has to be started (if it's ongoing) and/or completed (if it's short term or project related). Simply: No date = No good. Summary: Is there a finish and/or a start date clearly stated or defined?

Addressing development needs Job shadowing Formal courses Self study Meetings & events Choice may depend on factors like Learning style Resources available Job shadowing good way of seeing all aspects of a possible career path (good & bad!). Person being shadowed may give a running commentary explaining what they are doing. If this isn’t possible e.g. customer listening then they can explain afterwards. Perhaps demonstrate the college STEPS system here to show the range of different development that goes on here?

Resources required Time Money Help from others Some people get support from employers to, say, gain a qualification. They may just give them time off work to attend college or they may even pay for the course. Of course they will only do this if it meets the needs of the organisation. This emphasises the earlier statement that CPD needs to be matched to organisational aims. Resource availability may also affect the timescales for achieving a goal. You may not be able to afford the time or money to fast-track and may, for example need to take a course over 2 years rather than 1 year etc. Help from others may be directly related to the development (e.g. training or advice) or may simply allow you to carry out the development e.g. giving you a lift to college, childcare etc.

Evidence of development Recognised qualifications Academic Industry / Profession Management feedback Peer feedback Client feedback Self assessment

Records PDP / CPD plan Appraisal records Created by individual What I did Why I did it What I achieved Appraisal records