Continuing Professional Development

The importance of Continuing Professional Development or CPD soft skills programmes

When I started my working life waaaay back in the 1960s, the overall workplace ethos was ‘just do the job’.

For the most part, people’s own development both professionally and personally was a bit hit or miss.

Of course, there were (and still are) occupations where people had to have training to maintain their professional standards.

Yet largely any other kind of training wasn’t considered important or wasn’t even considered at all.

Who You Are Is Important

How things have changed and there is a real recognition that who you are as a person is as important as what you do.

That recognition comes from both employers and employees.

When I was young, I thought that personal development was my responsibility alone and had nothing to do with work.

Looking back I can see how beneficial certain soft-skills training would have been to make my work life better and what it would have meant if my employers had seen that as well.

No Training On Offer

I had some fabulous jobs before Robin and I founded Impact Factory more than 27 years ago, but not one of those jobs offered me any training at all. So I took it upon myself to find courses that would support my own personal impact and growth both personally and professionally.

Again, all those years ago there wasn’t the fabulous smorgasbord of courses available that we have today. Today we really are spoilt for choice!

Attitudes towards working life have changed considerably as well and there is an appreciation that if people are going to be spending a huge chunk of their lives at work, then work needs to give them more. Work needs to see them as whole beings and needs to support them in ways never considered before.

Continuing Professional Development means that you keep pace with changes in your industry. The means to expand your knowledge base, and provide the highest level of professionalism to your customers and colleagues.

Continuing Personal Development

Continuing professional development of soft skills means improving qualities such as time management and the way you interact with others.

By focusing on your interpersonal skills, every part of your life is affected and enhanced and your confidence grows in leaps and bounds.

Bring the two together and this is what Impact Factory means by Continuing Professional Personal Development. And it has been a cornerstone of our work since we began.

It is about the whole person, not only the working person, and what a difference it can make when people can use new skills in their personal lives as well.

That’s why continuing development is essential.

We shouldn’t arrive at a point in our lives and say:

“That’s it, I’m done learning new things, gaining a greater understanding of myself, having insights about the way I feel, think and behave.”

Listen to our Podcast on Neuroscience
How Humans Learn: Impact Factory and Neuroscience

Life-long Learning

Life-long learning means just that.

And since we indeed do spend so much of our lives at work, how much better it is if we improve all of our skills so that our professional environment is a place we look forward to being in, interacting with colleagues, and feeling a valued part of an organisation.

Those organisations that do respect the individual are usually the ones that invest in their people’s progress because they know how essential it is.

Because we have moved so radically from a world where people could have jobs for life to one where job satisfaction is a major deciding factor in how long people stay with an organisation, supporting, encouraging, and facilitating development is vital.

Continuing Professional Development

Impact Factory runs

Open Personal Impact Courses

Tailored Personal Impact Training

and personalised

One-to-One Personal Development Skills Training

for anyone interested in

Personal Impact and Effectiveness