Continuing Professional Development – good for you and good for our profession

By guest blogger: Russ Coxon, MEng, IEng, MIET, MAPM
Senior Engineer (Electronics & Electrical)
Royal National Lifeboat Institution

How do we as STEM professionals encourage more young people into a career in a STEM discipline? There are lots of answers of course and the EDT provides an outstanding framework of industry partnerships. I can personally recommend the EES scheme as a former participant some 20 years ago, and more recently a mentor, and I am looking forward to being involved in the Go4SET programme in the near future.

Not everyone will have access to an EDT scheme, some employers are sadly not supportive and most STEM professionals are still not aware of the benefits for the young people, themselves and their organisation. There is something we can all do though to make ourselves become better STEM professionals. And the better we are in our roles, the better will be the products and services we deliver. Look at any Engineering project, for example, that has inspired you and I guarantee behind it will be a team of not just good Engineers, but great Engineers.

A key ingredient to becoming a great STEM professional is Continuing Professional Development. CPD is the process of improving one’s own knowledge and breadth of experience through methods such as training, research, attending conferences or simply taking time out to hit Wikipedia. It’s the Achilles heel for many STEM professionals as our tendency is to become engrossed in our work, with packed out diaries, and CPD is often the first casualty.

CPD is the responsibility of every STEM professional in whatever discipline we work. There are all kinds of barriers that might stop CPD from happening, some are actual barriers that must be overcome but many more are only perceived, probably all are not as insurmountable as we might expect. Here are a few and some pointers that I hope will help.

1.       I’m too busy – Of course you’re busy, you’re paid to be busy, and you’re unlikely to be less busy any time soon. CPD need not, I would say should not, be time-consuming. Six minutes in each working day becomes two hours each month or 24 hours in a year. So look for that six minutes in your diary and I guarantee you’ll find it; perhaps it’s one fewer coffee break, one email that you decide doesn’t really need reply, even arranging your workspace (physical or electronic) will get you that six minutes with very little effort. Once you’ve found your six minutes then guard it, protect it in whatever way you can, and do something productive with it, then you’re on your way to having a CPD habit you can build on.

 

2.       It’s not important  - In a way that’s true. If you don’t attend a conference, or a training course or read an online article then your business will continue to function, products will be designed and delivered and your customers and managers won’t notice.  But ask anyone who takes CPD seriously what they have gained and you will uncover stories of the Engineer who got a product to market quicker because of a chat with a supplier at an exhibition, the Project Manager who is now hitting their targets because they took time to learn a new project management methodology online. If you think CPD isn’t important then try it, find that six-minutes a day, then come back and ask yourself whether it’s important, you’ll be surprised.

 

3.       I don’t know how –In short, anything which makes you better at your job could be considered to be CPD. Training courses (online or face-to-face) are obvious examples; they have a defined duration and a defined end point – a certificate. Similarly attending conferences, exhibitions and trade shows are easy to record as CPD. Writing an article for a trade journal is likely to be CPD, but what about reading one? That’s OK too, but only as long as it’s a highbrow journal from a respected organisation?  Not at all, we can often gain the most understanding, and in the shortest time from a YouTube video that demonstrates a new technology, a Wikipedia article that explains how some system works, or ten minutes at a colleague’s desk as they talk us through some aspect of their work. Talk to other STEM professionals in your organisation, seek their advice, find out their CPD habits and learn from them.

Did anyone remind you to brush your teeth this morning? I expect not, it’s your responsibility and if you don’t do it then nobody’s going to come after you. CPD is the same, aim for a few minutes every day, or at least once or twice a week and let the habit develop. If you’re a manager aim to develop the habit in your team, but don’t demand it through appraisals and complicated registers of CPD activity, model it; be seen to be the one in your team who values CPD , chat about the course you’re going on, forward the article you’ve just read, and above all don’t be the one who fills up someone else’s six minutes with trivia and crowds out that CPD time for them.

If we take care of our own professional development, then we’ll be better at what we do. And that’s going to have visible outcomes. Great STEM professionals are the ones who present at conferences, write articles that reach beyond trade journals and hit national media, they deliver solutions that inspire the next generation. That could be you.