Are you still learning? How to keep up with your CPD and why it's important

Now, more than ever, with unemployment and uncertainty at a high, it pays to use the working-from-home situation as far as possible to be better prepared for the future. McKinsey’s recent survey about virtual learning https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-accelerate/our-insights/closing-the-capability-gap-in-the-time-of-covid-19 found that a large majority of employees have been able to keep up their learning capacity when working from home, and almost 90% of participants in virtual learning courses said the experience was equally or more effective than an in-person event!

So, how can you use the virtual learning space to get maximum benefit?

1) Learn new concepts and skills in order to keep current with developments in your field. Depending on your type of work you will need to do some research into the digital offers to find the most effective ones. Most L&D teams have been working furiously in collaboration with management teams and have spent energy and money into developing the type of virtual training that you need to strengthen existing skills and develop new ones. You should make the most of all the relevant training that they offer you, because this means you are keeping abreast of what your organisation expects you to know to be competitive in the future.

In addition, keep an eye out for online conferences, meetings and courses in your field of work, offered by professional associations and alumni groups, etc. Many of these are free, and can be a fantastic way of learning new things and also making new contacts (see next point!). And even if a course costs something, it may be a good investment in your future. This is particularly true if you have been hit by unemployment and are looking for new opportunities.

2) Build collaborative relationships during the experience, not only with the people you normally work with, but with people from other parts of the organisation, too. External training courses offer you the opportunity to grow your network, and even with potential leads to employers.

3) it’s important to follow through from the learning experience. The value of skills training (real or virtual) is in recognisable and measurable behavioural change.

So ask yourself the following questions:

Ø What do I need to learn?

Ø Where can I build that capacity?

Ø How much can I invest in my CPD (time, effort, money)?

Ø How can I apply what I have learned?