Importance Of Continuing Professional Development Essay

Continual professional development is improving ones skill and abilities benefiting the individual and the organisation. It is also taking responsibility for ones learning. In these changing times where most people no longer have a job for life, learning is crucial for employability, also as business technology evolves at a much faster pace, individuals need to keep up to date with latest way of doing things – CPD can help to achieve this. My development needs There are different means by which you can develop your skills, knowledge and behaviours, for instance by accessing the Cipd website, reading daily alerts, resourcing journals online and by attending Cipd events I am able to keep up to date with current issues across the sector. I have already started to do this, and have booked myself onto some of the Cipd events. I can improve my knowledge by planning time to go through financial and reporting systems that my organisation uses, with my line/ store manager. I can also research the company intranet, as it contains a wealth of information. By attending ‘Vision’ courses in my workplace I start to think about my personal behaviours, such as self-awareness, which in turn can help me be a better role model for others. I have an interest in performance and reward management and so I am looking forward to the module on this, I will also be having a thorough look at this in my workplace, and also plan to look into performance an d reward that our competitors offer. CPD is important to me for the following reasons,  1, to enable me to improve my skill set making me more employable across the sector. 2, to help build my self-confidence, in a competitive job market. 3, to enable me to be aware of current goings on within the sector. 4, It will make me a more knowledgeable individual which will in turn benefit my team and organisation. Development Options There are many different ways of meeting continued professional needs, and different tools that can be used to help learning, these include reinforcement theories, cybernetic and information theories, cognitive  theories and problem solving and the experiential learning cycle. There are different learning style questionnaires that help people to identify which style of learning suits them, this can then be used to deliver training and learning. For example, Honey and Mumfords learning cycle suggests the following learning styles, Activist, Reflector, Theorist and Pragmatist. The VARK questionnaire is a similar tool concentrating on Visual, Aural, Read and Kinaesthetic methods of learning. In most cases people fall into more than one category, so learning styles need to be adapted so that people are able to get something out of the training. It is important to keep the training varied to account for this. Personally I prefer a mix of visual images to support my learning with some text. I also prefer to see something in conjunction with listening to a lecture, I find the visual image helps to embed the learning. It is important to be open to new styles of learning, and if I find that I am struggling with something using the internet to help find a different reports which I may find easier to understand.