Why Should you undertake a professional development program?
Professional Development is an important cornerstone of our working lives. It is the process which keeps us interested in our work, gives us the drive to progress our careers, and keeps industry competitive and, ultimately, makes us employable throughout our lives. What’s more, it is something we do every day of our lives without even thinking about it.
If you are to maximize your potential for lifetime employability, it is essential that you maintain high levels of professional competence by continually improving your knowledge and skills.
The job market is forever changing. You may no longer be able to rely on your employer to identify and satisfy your development needs. You may well move jobs frequently during your working life. Therefore, you need to take ownership of your career and its continuing development.
The effect of such changes has increased the demands on people in all walks of life to maintain documentary evidence of their continued competence; and nowhere is this more important than in science and engineering, where technology is advancing so swiftly. In your own best interests, you should be developing a personal portfolio of your professional activities and their relevance to your current job and your continued career as well as your future ambitions.
By taking ownership of your career and focusing your professional development you will:
– be better able to recognize opportunity
– be more aware of the trends and directions in technology and society
– become increasingly effective in the workplace
– be able to help, influence and lead others by your example
– be confident of your future employability
– have a fulfilling and rewarding career
Taking a structured approach to your professional development will enable you to demonstrate continuing commitment to your profession. What’s more, the good practice of regularly reviewing your needs, and selecting appropriate learning activities to help you fulfill them, will give your career focus and meaning.
Planning Your Professional Development
Plan to achieve
Managing your professional development is just like managing any other project. You need to set specific targets in order to achieve your objectives. You now need a structured approach – a Plan.
When thinking about your plan you should consider:-
When and how you learn best.
The type of activities that will be most effective for you.
The financial and time resource implications of your plan.
Whether or not your employer is supportive of your development.
Many people are opportunists who prefer to take advantage of opportunities as they arise, rather than work steadily towards a planned goal. It is helpful to realize your own inclination in this matter. The most successful opportunists are those who ensure they are always ready and able to seize an opportunity when it comes.
It is worthwhile, even at this planning stage, to think about gathering evidence. This could be for use in your appraisal, in compiling your CV, or for your portfolio. Taking this into consideration now will help you to avoid having to retrace your steps to gather evidence if you need to later.
For ease of use we have split this section into 4 parts to reflect the most frequently asked questions:-
Why should I plan?
When should I plan and how often?
What should I include in my plan?
What tools are there to help me?
Why Should I Plan?
There are many reasons why you should plan your professional development, not least because if you don’t you won’t appreciate your achievements and will not be able to track your progress. Here we explore further the reasons why it is worthwhile investing a little time now in order to reap the benefits of thorough planning later.
Understanding future needs
Business needs
Career/Job goals
Personal goals
Understanding future needs
Few people are lucky enough to start life knowing what they want to be when they grow up, and sticking to that idea throughout their education and subsequent career. Even fewer are able to follow a precisely defined career path where development and promotion occur at pre-determined stages.
In the 21st century professionals are responsible for their own careers and have to make decisions about where they want to go next. They must be able to adapt to sudden career changes, whether these result from new opportunities or redundancy. This may seem to rule out the need to plan where you want your career to take you, but in reality strengthens the case for assessing your future needs and planning how to gain the competence you will need to meet them.
In terms of your future needs, you should also give some thought to the type of support which might help you to achieve your plan. For example, will you require a mentor at some stage? If so, when, and where would you look for one? What other types of supporters would you want? If you are thinking of gaining NVQs you will need to identify assessors and verifiers. You may also need financial support and/or flexible working arrangements if you are planning to study for a further qualification.
Business needs
Think about the business you are working in: What is the likely future demand for your product? Who are your competitors? What other threats face your business? What is the research and development department working on, and how might this affect you? What are the likely opportunities for promotion or a sideways move within the company? Companies are subject to mergers, takeovers, closure and strategic changes in output or location; all of which provide career opportunities and threats.
With the pace of technical change, businesses need those who are familiar with the latest technology, or have the capability to bring themselves up to speed very quickly. Keeping an eye on the technical press, attending lectures and talking to customers and suppliers will help you to identify the technical changes most likely to affect your business. Acquiring the relevant skills will give you a head start in meeting the challenge of change when it comes. Alternatively, you may find that a new technology is of particular interest, and want to create the opportunity for a move in that direction.
Soft skills, transferable skills and interpersonal skills are all terms which have come into common usage in recent years. Surveys of employers frequently indicate that these skills are often in short supply, especially among technical professionals and new entrants to the workforce. You will need to have or gain these skills simply to function in most jobs, but if you want to progress to senior levels you will have to develop them to a high level. These types of skills also tend to be very generic – at a superficial level the requirements may seem to differ according to an employer’s culture, but the basic principles still apply. So you need to plan to acquire and enhance a whole range of these skills.
Your employer may have formal mechanisms in place to identify business needs and corresponding development plans for employees. You may find yourself being groomed for a specific role, or part of a cohort expected to progress to a certain level within the organization. If this is the case, your employer will identify the skills you need to meet their objectives, and may have a structured development scheme to enable you to acquire them over a certain timescale. If your employer has such a scheme but you are not on it, you may want to find out how to get involved.
Career/Job goals
You will need to think about a whole host of factors. Most importantly you have to factor in your aspirations and the needs of your current and potential future employer, and your personal goals. Where do you want to be this year, next year or in five years time? Doing the same job? Promoted within your company? Or somewhere completely different; You will greatly improve your chances of creating or taking advantage of career opportunities if you predict these needs, and acquire the corresponding skills in a structured manner.
You may have some very clear ideas about what you want to do next. If this is the case, you should be able to gather information to help you analyze the skill requirements and identify any shortfall in your existing skill set. Talking to the person doing the job, looking at the job description and person specification, and talking it through with a mentor, will all help you to gain an understanding of what is required.
On a broader level, you may want to start with a clean sheet of paper and identify what you could or would like to do if you had a career change. For this you may need to do some fairly broad reading. Picking up professional and in-house publications could give you ideas for different disciplines or fields of activity which might appeal to you, or of where opportunities are increasing or declining. From there, getting in touch with someone working in that field is the most likely way of getting a real understanding of the nature of the work, the industry and the skills required. Specialist libraries, such as those run by institutions, are a good source of information. Your institution may also have special interest groups, or a careers service, who can put you in touch with employers or individuals.
Personal goals
An employer-led scheme is great if your aspirations coincide with what your company wants from you, although you may still be expected to influence the development plan. However, you may have different ideas, and need to take steps to ensure you achieve your own objectives.
On a more personal level, you need to consider your broader goals and aspirations. While these may range from being in a job this time next year to becoming the Chairman of the Board, they will also encompass the broader aspects of your life such as family, community and other interests. Your personal goals may include planning a family, taking time out to travel, or becoming President of your institution! So how much time do you have, to undertake career-related development outside the workplace? Will non-work activities affect your career path? Remember that these activities can provide you with valuable experience, skills and attitudes which may support and enhance your competence in the workplace.
Personal goals could also include the decision to seek formal assessment or recognition of your achievements through gaining an academic qualification or professional registration. You will need to find out whether your employer would be willing to support you in this. If the answer is no, and you are still determined to get the qualification you will have to make some tough decisions about how you will do it, and what the true value of it will be to you. If you want the qualifications in order to meet professional registration requirements, you will also need to think about how you can create a self-managed scheme, and who might be willing to act as a mentor or assessor for you.
When Should I Plan?
You need to start your planning now. If you don’t have a direction to go in, then you won’t know what to do to help you get there, or recognize when you’ve got there!
The period that your plan covers is up to you. Generally plans fall into three categories – long term, medium term, and short term. However, what is long term to you might be quite different to someone else’s view. The norm is that short term is about one year, medium term is up to five years and long term is up to 10 years. It is difficult for anyone to plan for longer than 10 years in today’s world.
The amount of detail in your plans will vary too. Longer term plans might just be ideas or visions for the future, while your short term plan should have specific milestones and deadlines for you to work towards.
You will need to think about planning regularly – at least once per year. Once you have done your first plan, subsequent planning sessions will consist of a review of the past development period and adding new actions for the next period.
Reviewing your plans
Seizing unplanned opportunities
Reviewing your plans
It is important to plan for review periods. You need to review for two reasons, to make sure you are keeping to your plan, and to make any necessary amendments as circumstances change.
Sometimes it is not possible to guess what the future will bring. At times of uncertainty, such as company insecurity, or when you can see many possible options ahead, and don’t know where you will end up, you will need to keep your plan flexible. Make sure you review your situation regularly and consider alternative options and contingencies.
However good your plan, it cannot take account of unexpected opportunities that arise from time to time. Just because something is not in your current short term plan doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of it: you might just need to change your plans to take the new opportunities into account.
Seizing unplanned opportunities
It is very important to always keep your plans firmly in mind, and to keep a watch for opportunities arising which will help you meet your goals – not just for the things in your current plan. If an opportunity arises that will help you towards one of your longer term goals, but it’s not in your current plan, just adjust your plans and go for it! This shows that it is possible to work to more than one plan at a time.
Conflict between personal and job goals may also mean you need to have two plans active at any given time. You may have an action plan which is the result of your appraisal, and contains only job specific goals. At the same time you may have a personal goal which requires you to develop additional skills to the ones identified for your work. Obviously you will need to carefully balance your activities, so as not to stretch yourself too far, but you should be able to work to both plans in parallel.
What should I include in my Plan?
So you know you need to plan, and how it will help you to achieve your goals; but how do you go about deciding what to put in your plan? If you are fortunate enough to have a supportive employer and regular appraisals, then you have a good place to start. Here we look at some other ways to help you define what your plan should include.
Determine the skills you need
Focus your learning
Consider your learning style
Getting the balance right
Prioritization
Level of detail
Setting a review date
Determine the skills you need
a) Thinking in terms of competence
The goals you have in mind will indicate the specific knowledge and skills you need to acquire. At this point, it is more helpful to think of these in terms of competences rather than of knowledge to be gained. This way you will be clearer about what you actually need to do. Also, expressing your development in terms of competence will help you to explain to others what exactly you have achieved, and why it is important and useful.
There is nothing new or strange about personal self-assessment – we do it every day. If we didn’t understand our capabilities and limitations, we might all enter the London Marathon! We assess ourselves every time we consider a job advert – Would I like the job? Could I do it? Do I match the job specification? However, we are often less sure about carrying out a regular assessment of our needs and capabilities in relation to our everyday work activities.
Your institution believes that professional development is a self-owned and self-managed activity: self-assessment of competence is a logical extension of this concept.
Ideally, these processes are carried out with the support of your employer. However, in these turbulent times for business and employment, this may not always be possible or, even, sometimes advisable. Your own development aims may at times vary from those of your employer, or you may be working for yourself or enjoying a portfolio career. Whatever the circumstances, there is now a requirement to assess more accurately and confidently your own needs and accomplishments, both in reviewing your goals and plans, and judging how well you are doing.
TIP: For the purposes of your own professional development, it might be useful to be aware of summary of overall competence for engineers which states that competence of an individual includes:
The basic knowledge, understanding, experience and skills appropriate to the level of knowledge
A detailed understanding of the principles and a mastery of the knowledge and analytical skills required for the specialist engineering role
The ability to perform the technical role fully and well
The supervisory management and personal skills required to be effective in both expected and unforeseen situations
All that really matters is that you can clearly see progress in your competences and that you build evidence of this progress over time, in directions that support both your career and your personal objectives.
b) Information to include
Employer schemes – many employers have specific development schemes for their employees. If this applies in your case, then they will almost certainly help you identify your development actions. You may wish to set yourself additional goals, but the scheme will provide the starting point for your plan.
Appraisals – any development actions identified on your last appraisal must be included in your plan. Even if your development action plan is for your personal use, you will need to take into account the development that your manager has identified for you.
Accredited training schemes – these schemes, run by employers, have been accredited by the relevant institution(s) to ensure they meet all the requirements to support their employees in achieving professional registration. If you are lucky enough to be included on one of these schemes, you will have all the help you need to prepare your development action plan; particularly in identifying your competences.
Competence frameworks – although your employer may not have a formal scheme, they may have competence frameworks in place. These will detail the skills and knowledge required for each role or function, and you will be able to use these in assessing any development you may need for your current, or a possible future, role. If your employer doesn’t have a competence framework you may still find it helpful to plan your development in terms of the Competences you will acquire.
Legal Requirements – very few areas of engineering are governed by strict codes of conduct or requirements for specific amounts or types of professional development. However, it will be wise for you to include in your planning and reviewing, any changes in legislation or best practice with respect to your specific area, and those for health, safety and the environment.
There are, of course, many other possibilities that will arise from your job, your network of colleagues and friends, private reading, conferences and events, etc. Your institution, and more especially its various committees, national and local events, and publications will also provide ideas and guidance. Other engineering institutions, together with those of non-engineering professions, can also provide valuable guidance.
c) Standards
As well as using job descriptions, appraisals, competence frameworks, etc as a means of identifying the Competences you may wish to develop, you should identify any performance standards that apply to your work. These may be laid down at international, national or company level, and include quality, safety and environmental standards. Effectively, standards enable you to assess whether you have done the job properly. Many published standards are available for you to use.
d) Gap analysis
Comparing your existing competence profile (in terms of both areas and degrees of competence) against the profiles for your existing post, or jobs you aspire to, is an important step when setting objectives and developing your Development Action Plan. Only when you have established the ‘gap’ (the difference between where you are now and where you want to be), will you be able to identify methods for bridging it. Mentors and line managers can be of invaluable assistance in this type of exercise, as well as an excellent source of ideas as to how to go about addressing your ‘gaps’.
Focus your learning
When you have reached the end of this stage you may find you have created a daunting list: it is therefore a good idea to concentrate on only a few areas at any one time. Choose only those competences immediately relevant to your current job to start with. That way you will be able to experience discernible or measurable progress and consolidate your learning.
Set realistic and achievable targets for yourself and have only, say, 3 or 4 targets to reach for any one period. Obviously, if you meet your targets early you can always bring your review forward!
Consider your learning style
Knowing which learning style suits you best will enable you to ensure that your learning is effective and help you in selecting the most appropriate learning activities. However, you should also realize that you may have a mix of different styles.
Getting the balance right
While it is vital that you gain the technical knowledge and skills required to perform well in your specific role, it is also important to keep a balance between technical and personal development. Personal skills that you need to strengthen may include management skills, communications, problem solving abilities, health & safety, commercial knowledge or an understanding of other specialist business functions.
Keeping a balance within your development will make you a more ‘well-rounded’ professional and will help you to perform better within your own area. It will also allow you to take advantage of opportunities that may arise to work in other areas, or prepare you for future promotion.
Another way of maintaining balance is to ensure that you undertake different types of learning. It is very easy to only think about on-the-job learning, or self-managed learning, but gaining qualifications is also valuable. Qualifications provide ready-made proof of achievement, and the cross-fertilization of ideas between students from different employers and industries can be invaluable.
Prioritization
Initially, you will need to consider exactly what it is you must tackle first. The first step is to make a list of the tasks facing you – and it may be possible to break larger projects into stages: once you have this list, you can consider them individually. At this point, you can consider whether tasks are urgent or important.
Urgent: The task is time-bound, so has to be completed by a certain date. However, the task may be of no importance. Some urgent tasks will never be undertaken.
Important: The task needs to be done, but may not be urgent – so does not need to be completed by a ‘rapidly approaching’ deadline.
Considering what you need to have achieved before you can do this task is one way of deciding which tasks must come before others. In this way you will be able to order the tasks appropriately, and so can list them in the order in which you intend to tackle them.
Note: Although you will have an ordered list of tasks, if opportunities arise for you to do a later task before an earlier one, these should not be overlooked. You can always change your priorities if you need to.
Level of detail
The amount of detail you put into your plan is up to you. Some people prefer to set very defined and specific goals, whilst others have quite broad headings and little detail. You may decide not to go into very much detail for your long and medium term plans, but set specific goals for your current short term plan. This will avoid you spending too much time specifying goals which are a long way off, and therefore liable to change, whilst ensuring that your immediate objectives are well defined. Of course, you can always add detail to your objectives as you work with, and review, your plan.
Setting a review date
Reviewing your plan is a vital part of the development process. Your plan needs to be up-to-date and appropriate in order to be an effective tool. It is therefore important that you regularly update it to remove the goals that you have already achieved, add new targets for the next period, and to ensure it reflects any changes in your circumstances.
The frequency of your reviews will depend on a number of factors, some of which may be very personal. Nothing should be regarded as set in stone, but should be seen as flexible, to fit in with your current circumstances. You may like to consider the following when setting your review(s):
Are your objectives short, medium or long term? The frequency must clearly depend on the time frame envisaged. It would be pointless to review a set of end-month objectives only annually, while there can be more flexibility about longer term ones. You may find it useful to carry out some sort of review every month, to see whether you have met your short-term objectives and are on course for the longer term ones, so that any corrective actions can be considered. A year should be considered the maximum period for any in-depth review. Much will depend on the rapidity with which your work and responsibilities are changing, and the range of competences you are developing at any one time.
It is convenient to plan for a review to coincide with formal (annual or half-yearly) appraisals. This not only meets your employer’s planning cycle, but allows you to be fully prepared to derive value from the exercise, to take on board any suggestions for change, and to rapidly incorporate these into your plans.
Do carry out a review at any points of change, e.g. changes of responsibility, location or employer. Not only do you need to account for the changes themselves in the development plans, probably adding and subtracting topics at the detailed level, but you must also take account of the broader effects on your career aims and overall direction – not forgetting the implications for your personal objectives.
You may like to think of the regular review and updating of your CV as part of this process. Any change of circumstances – or consideration of other job opportunities – should trigger a review of your CV and, if nothing else, will act as a quasi-review process.
There are several tools that can help you manage your professional cycle and it is something you can subscribe to or purchase. There are too many to list here and one suggestion would be to download templates that are freely available on the Internet and one that suits your style and needs. There is no one-template-fits-all, so there is nothing that is a bad choice.
Good luck with your planning!
Authored by Vijay Chander with tektalk.tech 2022.
