Continuing Professional Development remains an important element of an engineer's career

In an industry like engineering, which has a significant impact on society, public confidence about the professionalism and competence of engineers and technicians is important. This has contributed to a raised awareness of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in recent years. When we leave formal education, we don't stop learning, and CPD is quickly becoming the recognised way of making sure our professional competence can be demonstrated throughout our careers. The practice has become more widespread in recent years as both individuals and companies begin to realise the value of good CPD practice. The role of CPD The importance of CPD is clearly recognised by professional bodies many include it in their codes of conduct to members. As Europe's largest professional body for engineers, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), addresses the issue: "Members shall keep their knowledge and skills up to date through planned professional development and seek to broaden and deepen that knowledge throughout their working life. Members shall also encourage persons working under their supervision to do the same." Professionally registered members (CEng, IEng, EngTech or ICTTech) must also follow the Engineering Council's CPD Code. The IET supports engineers and technicians from their early career through to their retirement. Not only does it encourage its members to undertake professional development, but it has a scheme in place to assist members with that development. Through the launch of a CPD Monitoring Scheme, IET members are encouraged to create a simple development plan and a record of CPD activities they have undertaken. While the scheme is voluntary, those opting in will benefit from general feedback, allowing them to benchmark themselves against how much and what type of CPD is undertaken by others. They will also receive individual tailored feedback on their CPD records through peer review, if selected for monitoring. When developing this scheme, the IET considered many factors to ensure it was easy to follow and that members gained maximum benefit from their CPD. The IET recognises that many different activities contribute towards CPD and has identified six categories to reflect this – training courses, work experience, academic study, volunteering, events and seminars, and self study, such as reading or internet research, are all valid activities. Many schemes have measured CPD using such measures as hours or points. However, input measures alone do not always give the full picture – simply attending a course may not signal that someone has advanced professionally; it is what was learnt on that course that contributes towards CPD. This can be monitored using output measures which focus on self reflection and analysis. What did you learn on your course? Do you feel more confident professionally now? What will you take away from today? It is through this self reflection that individuals gain value from their CPD activities and satisfaction at seeing how they can progress. Many professional bodies are now incorporating this into their CPD monitoring, either by combining it with an input measure or by moving to a purely output based measure. The IET's CPD monitoring scheme uses both hours (input) and reflection (output). Personal monitoring The IET recommends all professional engineers and technicians undertake and record their CPD, providing a lifelong record for them to draw on. This can be used as a personal record and shared with employers, clients and peers to demonstrate professionalism and competence for appraisals or job interviews. As technology advances, it is vital for the IET to provide its members with a cutting edge online professional development recording system that will support them throughout their careers. Career Manager is an online system available to IET members at any time. It allows members to manage their career profile with a structured and focused approach, providing an opportunity to improve existing job performance and update transferable skills. Recent improvements to Career Manager mean CPD activities can be logged quickly and easily. Members can record CPD hours and a reflective statement against their activities, produce from this high level or detailed CPD reports. Maintaining a CPD record requires little effort, but also some self discipline. Career Manager offers the flexibility to record your professional history and manage your future development. By understanding your strengths and weaknesses, you can identify relevant opportunities and plan development objectives to address them, helping you make informed career related decisions. By joining the IET's online Professional Development community, which is open to members and non members alike, you can engage with like minded engineers and technicians to discuss and share ideas, experiences and information about professional development. Dick Bacon is the IET's manager of Professional Development.