Table of Contents
What Is CPD?
CPD stands for Continuing Professional Development and it is about the drive to ensure a certain level of standards in professional education.
Professional education tends to refer to learning that is provided by employers (such as soft skills for the workplace) or for vocational training.
These skills, which are developed and used in a professional setting such as by an employee, team leader, manager, or business owner, involve the trainee being seen to improve to a new level.
CPD standards, in essence, provide a way of measuring that a certain level of development can take place for the learner in that training materials and courses that are certified meet the standards against which we check all materials.
Certain industries in the UK and worldwide require their members to undertake a certain number of CPD points per year and this helps to ensure that these employees receive a certain level of training each year.
CPD standards can be applied to instructors, training materials, training courses, seminars, written and audio materials, video lessons and teaching, and pretty much any aspect of professional and adult learning.
Indeed, CPD does not only apply to workplace training but can also be used for certifying training offered such as by freelance trainers. The important point is that CPD is about pushing standardization for adult learning.
IS CPD a Qualification
CPD does not replace qualifications. Rather, CPD is about training standards and the process of a person being seen to develop skills.
CPD Examples
There are numerous examples of CPD but some of the most common will include some form of:
- Taking training (such as an employee doing a conflict management workshop)
- Receiving coaching from a mentor
- Getting work experience and learning new skills
- Distance or online learning
- Job rotation and hence developing further skills
- Attending conferences and learning
- Self-learning via online media
- Undertaking voluntary work and developing new skills
What Is CPD Credit?
We allocate CPD points for training that we certify. As an example, training materials for a full-day training course will typically be given 7 points, i.e. one point per teaching hour.
Certain organizations expect their staff to undertake a certain number of CPD hours each year. In other words, these staff must develop their skillset and, depending on the industry, you may or may not have flexibility in what type of learning you are expected to undertake.
What Is CPD and Why Is It Important?
CPD provides a means of helping to raise the standards of adult learning and importantly it is not something that companies and organizations push you to do just for the sake of it. The intention, of CPD, is to help you:
- Develop new skills and to keep your CV (resume) up-to-date
- Make sure that you are aware of new and relevant topics and issues (this can be anything from equality and diversity standards, through to how to use the latest version of MS Office)
- Keep up-to-date with your own industry and what’s going on and new developments (attending conferences, workshops and events is a common way to build your CPD points and diary)
- Reinforce existing knowledge
As you can see, other than requiring you to undertake a certain number of CPD hours each year, companies and organizations are NOT trying to add paperwork and stress for you.
Quite the opposite. The concept of CPD is to really help you and to help you shape your opportunities, knowledge, skills and to give you the best opportunity to continue to advance.
