by Alan Nelson
At yesterday’s CPD Forum meeting I enjoyed a presentation from Ana Catalano of the Chartered Insurance Institute. They have recently completed a review of CPD and a survey of members’ attitudes towards it.
I was struck by the fact that although there is evidence that the public at large expect professionals to have rules about how they stay current, members too often see the whole thing as a necessary evil. The job of evangelising the value of good CPD clearly requires organisations not only to communicate effectively but also to display considerable stamina!
In response to a question asking people to identify the benefits of CPD, 67% of respondents agreed that it was partly to keep up to date, which seems high until you consider the alternative, in which case 33% of people not ticking that box seems even higher! 9% of people ticked the box that said “no benefit”, which is fairly depressing, and only 45% thought it would improve service to customers.
I was particularly struck by the luke-warm response to the question “How would you describe the CPD process?” Answers such as “another box to tick”, “adequate” and “time consuming” are disappointing, although less so that “slightly inconvenient and evidentially mistrusting”.
People seem to come to CPD with the question “what do I have to do?” This compliance approach leads to a range of unfortunate answers to the question about what they understand as their responsibilities with regard to CPD. Perhaps the most honest was “To get 100 points a year.”
All credit to CII for conducting the research and facing up to the problem. I don’t think the results are very different to what would emerge in other membership bodies and we won’t solve the problem unless we acknowledge it.
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