Continuing Professional Development: How to Learn at Work
By Bruntwood
When you’re hired for a job, it’s usually because you’ve got the knowledge and skills required to carry it out effectively. However, in order to ensure you’re progressing within your role and honing your skills, Continuing Professional Development is vital.
No matter what industry you work in, there are always ways to upskill and improve both professional and soft skills to ensure you can easily adapt to any changes within your industry. But what is professional development and how can you learn more at work?
What is Professional Development?
Continuing Professional Development, also known as CPD, is the official term used for the training and learning activities that professionals take part in in order to upskill and grow within their role or industry.
Some examples of CPD in the workplace include:
Professional courses
Formal education and qualifications
Job shadowing and learning from colleagues
Work-based learning
Self-learning
Mentoring
Secondments or job rotations
As there are a number of different ways to learn at work, anybody can benefit from CPD, no matter what their learning style is.
Why is Continuing Professional Development Important?
Aside from ensuring you’re able to constantly progress within your role, Continuing Professional Development is important for a number of different reasons.
Firstly, ensuring you’ve got the knowledge you need to carry out your role effectively may help to reduce stress in the workplace, which is beneficial for both employers and employees. Similarly, it helps to grow confidence, both personally and professionally, which may contribute to improved mental health at work.
From a professional point of view, CPD is important as it can allow people to take charge of their career path and steer it in the direction they want to go, helping them to achieve their career goals and aspirations.
The Benefits of Coworking for Professional Development
When it comes to progressing at work, learning from colleagues is one of the easiest - and often most rewarding - ways to improve your knowledge.
From structured training sessions in dedicated training rooms, to simply talking to colleagues about their roles and what they’re working on can allow people to gain knowledge and continually progress in the workplace.
Coworking spaces can be particularly beneficial for this kind of professional development, as you share the space with people from so many industries, with a variety of different skill sets, meaning there’s ample opportunity to learn something new.
Additionally, many coworking spaces offer networking events, providing members with the chance to meet their coworking colleagues, learn more about what they do, which could lead to external training sessions from experts within other fields.
At a time when flexible working is becoming more popular, this is even more important, as it provides people with an opportunity for work-based learning which many remote workers may miss out on. In fact, a survey found that 36% of workers felt that their professional development regressed whilst working remotely during the pandemic.
How to Learn More at Work
If you’re keen to improve your skills and direct your career path in the direction you want it to go in, then you may be wondering how to learn more at work. Some of the best ways include:
Talk to people outside your department and find out more about their role
Arrange regular training sessions, both internally and externally
Enrol on a professional development course in the area you want to improve
Don’t be afraid to ask questions or ask for help from a colleague when you’ve got a gap in your knowledge
Set yourself tangible goals with dates for when you want to achieve them
Read forums, magazines and books related to your niche
Push yourself out of your comfort zone
Attend regular training sessions at work
From training sessions to professional development plans, there are a number of different ways to ensure you’re consistently learning and progressing within your role, helping to improve your career prospects.
If you’re looking to learn more at work, coworking spaces provide the perfect opportunity to speak to inspiring, knowledgeable people both within and outside of your industry. Get in touch with us today to find out more about what we can offer you.