How Can a Continuing Professional Development Framework Drive Powerful Business Growth?

According to JobStreet’s 2023 Hiring, Compensation & Benefits Report, training or self-learning programmes are the most common form of career development companies plan to offer this year. In fact, 49 per cent of Singaporean companies already offer these programmes, while 12 per cent intend to provide self-learning opportunities this year. After all, it is well-established that employees, especially high-performing ones, value growth opportunities. 

Building a culture of learning is beneficial not only to your employees but to your business as well. It can help you attract and retain talent and bring valuable growth to your business. A learning culture with a continuing professional development (CPD) framework encourages employees to constantly improve their expertise and apply what they’ve learned to their work. 

Certainly, one cannot underestimate the impact of organisational culture on corporate performance. A robust learning culture encourages employees to develop innovative ideas, stay up-to-date on the best industry practices, and find creative solutions to business challenges. 

Get buy-in from senior management. As former McKinsey Chief Learning Officer Matthew Smith says, “There’s a huge role that organisations play in setting the context and the culture for learning…Like so many things, it starts at the top. It starts with having a CEO or a senior leader who values learning and talks about it very actively.”

In other words, a leader who believes in learning new things and promotes having a growth mindset can inspire employees to adopt the same attitude. 

Create a culture of psychological safety. Make sure your employees feel safe to share new ideas and ways of doing things. It is part of why buy-in from senior management is so crucial – there’s no point in learning to innovate if senior management is set in their ways and rejects new ideas. 

It’s also essential for everyone to understand that making mistakes is part of learning. According to SHRM, part of establishing psychological safety is allowing employees to take acceptable risks without fear of facing repercussions if they fail. 

Employees can become resistant to learning and trying new methods if they fear punishment for their mistakes. Instead of reprimanding your employees, encourage them to learn from the experience to avoid repeating the same errors. 

Hire for adaptability. When hiring, look for people who have a growth mindset. You can do this by including behavioural questions in your interviews. For instance, you can ask them to tell you about a time when they had to learn a new skill or step out of their comfort zone. If a candidate’s resume includes certifications and seminars attended, this could also indicate a desire to build their expertise. And if their cover letter indicates that they took free online courses or used their SkillsFuture credit, this is a sign of resourcefulness as well.

Rather than hiring candidates based on their degrees, consider implementing skills-based hiring. It involves finding candidates with the transferable skills needed for the position and then teaching them the technical skills required for the job. 

This approach helps you expand your pool of candidates. Plus, career switchers are more likely to have a growth mindset – the fact that they’re willing to enter a different field shows a readiness to learn. You can take advantage of government initiatives such as the Career Conversion Programmes, which offer up to 90% salary and course fee support for reskilling workers. 

Assess skills gaps and tie learning and development to business objectives.   Smith observes that many businesses treat learning and development as simply an HR initiative to retain talent without tying it to their strategic objectives. Confirm that your learning and development programmes drive business growth by ensuring the skills you develop are related to your business objectives. 

Assess the organisation’s skills gap by doing a skills audit of your employees. Determine which skills can be obtained through upskilling or reskilling. This way, when you create training programmes for your employees, you can be sure that these programmes are geared toward achieving company goals. 

Integrate learning in your performance reviews.  At performance reviews, ask employees what they would like to learn or what skills they would like to develop over the next few months and integrate this into their training and development programme. 

It is beneficial for two reasons: First, including learning in your performance reviews shows that you are serious about learning and development rather than simply being something that would be “nice to have.” Second, employees are more likely to engage if they can personalise their learning rather than feeling forced to undergo a generic training programme.

You can help your employees adopt a growth mindset by encouraging them to undergo Continuing Professional Development (CPD). CPD is the process of developing one’s professional skills and documenting one’s progress. 

The documentation aspect of this process sets CPD apart from simply upskilling, reskilling, or training. When employees formally document their professional development activities throughout their careers, it helps them to see how far they have come.

If your employees already possess a growth mindset, they will see CPD as an opportunity rather than a chore. However, if you do sense reluctance in your employee, you can explain to them that learning new skills can help them improve their performance and open up more opportunities for career advancement. 

There are five stages in the CPD cycle. While CPD is, by nature, an employee-driven process, employers can use CPD to build a learning culture by assisting employees at every stage. 

Identify and plan The employee identifies their skills gaps or areas for improvement and creates a plan for addressing them. This plan includes activities such as taking online courses, reading self-help books, finding a mentor, or joining workshops and seminars. 

Managers can support their employees at this stage by providing feedback on areas for improvement, asking them what they’re interested in learning, or pointing them towards programmes that would help them build on their strengths. 

Once the employee decides on a skill they would like to learn, HR can help them find resources such as short courses or workshops. 

Learn The employee undertakes the learning activities they have planned out. You can assist your employees by shouldering the cost of their training. If your organisation is unable to provide financial support, you can look into SkillsFuture Singapore’s Enhanced Training Support for SMEs Programme. This initiative offers coverage for up to 90% of course fees depending on the type of course taken. 

In addition to this, many employees feel unable to make time for CPD activities when they’re caught up with accomplishing their tasks. Managers can support their employees by allowing them to study or attend seminars during office hours, or counting time spent on CPD towards working hours. 

It is another reason why getting buy-in from senior management is critical. Leaders with a growth mindset understand the benefits of investing in your workforce and are therefore more likely to approve of upskilling on company time. 

Reflect The employee reflects on what they have learned and how their new knowledge and skills can impact their work. This is critical to the CPD process since reflecting on lessons can help you to retain them.  

At this stage, HR can assist employees by encouraging them to keep a “reflection diary” throughout the training programme and providing them with reflection questions.

Apply The employee puts the lessons they’ve learned into practice at the workplace. Managers can support their staff at this point by being open to new ideas or ways of doing things. 

Share The employee shares what they’ve learned with others, be it a friend, coworker, or manager. At this stage, managers can check in with their staff on how their training plan went. After this, the employee identifies what they would like to learn next and repeats the cycle. 

Investing in your employees can pay dividends in terms of talent attraction and retention, as well as employee performance. This is because it shows your employees that you value them and care about their personal development. You are also more likely to attract employees who are highly motivated since they appreciate companies that help them hone their skills. 

Furthermore, a continuing professional development framework can drive business growth by empowering employees to perform more complex tasks and come up with innovative ways to achieve corporate objectives. McKinsey Academy global leader Elizabeth Young McNally observes that some companies use learning to outperform their competition. When you create a learning culture that empowers your employees to pursue continuing professional development, you’re priming your business for success. 

Now that you know how to create a learning culture, find out more about managing talent by visiting our Insights page.