Importance of Continuing Professional Development

This report discusses the importance of continuing professional development (CPD) in enhancing skills and performance. It explores the steps involved in developing a CPD plan, including identifying needs, planning and carrying out development activities, self-reflection, applying learning in practical life, sharing learning with others, and recording development. The report emphasizes the commitment of individuals towards their own professional development.

Employability Skills
and Professional
Development

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Main Body..................................................................................................................................3
Aims and objectives of portfolio............................................................................................3
Continuing Professional development Plan...........................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
Employability skills are those skills which are required by an individual to make them
a successful employee. Along with various technical understanding of subject employees are
also required to have various other skills such as communication, problem-solving skills,
working under pressure, team working skills, and negotiation skills and so on (Holloway,
Arcus and Orsborn, 2018). The following report consists of various aims and objectives for
development of a portfolio along with importance of continuous professional development. In
the following report a CPD is also developed in order to describe various learning activities
for professionals to engage themselves and develop their abilities and skills. At the end the
report consist of a reflection along with future challenges and steps required to face them.
Main Body
Aims and objectives of portfolio
I plan on using this portfolio in order to evaluate coursework quality along with the
progress. Helping students in order to reflect on their various academic goals and the progress
which they have made can also be identified with the help of a portfolio. The following
portfolio is developed in order to meet the requirement for appraisal meeting. The managers
in an organisation require employees to develop portfolio so that their performance can be
successfully judged and they could be provided incentives and appraisals based upon their
input towards the organisation.
Continuing Professional development Plan
There are a number of different areas in CPD which are to be focused upon as being a
professional and taking responsibility in order to recognises own skills and improve it.
According to the study I conducted the first requirement is to identify the needs
successfully which will help in developing a plan. It is required by HR professionals to
develop good communication skills so that they can successfully communicate with
employees in the organisation (Sachdeva, 2016). Working in the field of human resource it is
also necessary to understand perception of other for which good listening powers are
required. One needs to make sure that they have empathy as a human resource employee
needs to deal with people on a regular basis. I believe having empathy will enable them to
successfully communicate and conduct their work in the organisation.

IIn accordance to the accumulated data I collected over topic the next steps include
planning and carrying out various development activities. In order to successfully plan
developmental activities formal methods as well as informal learning are used. For formal
methods training and development in the organisation are conducted where as in order to
carry on informal learning various video learning or taking mentoring or coaching sessions
from the seniors or superiors are considered in organisation. I believe it is necessary to list
down all the required skills in order to successfully work in human resource department.
There are a number of study skills required by employees in human resource which include
all the laws for employees benefit. Plan to take professional help in order to learn about these
laws can also be carried out in continuing professional development.
In accordance to my learning that I developed, the next step is reflection on learning.
It is necessary for individuals and organisation to understand the development of their own
activities and requirement of certain skills. Self-evaluation is necessary in order to understand
what the changes are required to be brought and certain ways which can be adopted in order
those changes (Bush, Coleman and West-Burnham, 2018). I strongly beleive self-reflection
and self-analysis is an important factor which will help any individual to successfully take
upon their failures and achievements. It is necessary that people are taking responsibility for
their own performance and reflection is a great way to judge the performance so far which
will also help individuals to take accountability of their actions along with taking various
measures for corrections.
The next important area is to apply learning in practical life. According to be there are
four stages through which an individual has to go through which is unconscious
incompetence this means not knowing what is not already known. Conscious incompetence
which means knowing the areas that are needed to be developed but still unable to develop
those. I strongly believe conscious competence which is able to do something good and
provide concentration in it and the last is unconscious competence which is doing something
instinctively without even focusing on it. These are various ways that will help and individual
in understanding the steps required to be taken by them and the areas of development. I
believe that these are various ways in which the learning can be applied into practical life.
According to the study I conducted saring learning with others is an important part in
CPD which helps in attaining the role of a leader (McMahon, 2017). In order to become
human resource manager from a human resource training it is necessary that learning is

shared with others and others are also guided which will help in developing leadership skills
in self. I strongly believe sharing learning will also help to improve the skills which are
gained throughout and develop the skills in others in order to meet the requirement of
organisation at once.
According to the research I conducted the last step is to record your development.
Recording development through continuing professional development will successfully
enable to demonstrate the initiating point and the finish point. It is necessary to make sure
that the results are compared with the set goals to measure the development. I believe
recording a development is also necessary which will continuously help in listing down new
skills that are required to be acquired. I also believe that the recording can be done of
development needs and goals, the training courses attended, the coaching and mentoring
sessions attempted, a note of book or website visited critical incidents while learning and so
on.
Conclusion
With the help of the above mentioned report the importance of continuing
professional development is understood. Continuing professional development is an on-going
process which includes developing, maintaining and documenting all the professional skills
that are required to be incorporated in an individual so that they can successfully perform all
the tasks and activities. There are a number of steps required in order to develop a continuing
professional development plan which will enable individual to focus on various areas that can
help them in their professional development. However CPD is used informally and it is the
commitment of an individual towards themselves and their own development

References
Books and Journals
Bush, T., Coleman, M. and West-Burnham, J., 2018. Mentoring and continuing professional
development. In Mentors in Schools (1996) (pp. 121-143). Routledge.
McMahon, G.T., 2017. The leadership case for investing in continuing professional
development. Academic Medicine, 92(8), pp.1075-1077.
Sachdeva, A.K., 2016. Continuing professional development in the twenty-first
century. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 36, pp.S8-
S13.
Holloway, K., Arcus, K. and Orsborn, G., 2018. Training needs analysis–The essential first
step for continuing professional development design. Nurse education in
practice, 28, pp.7-12.