A century ago, long before the National Health Service was created, it was possible for a doctor to work his entire career without undergoing any refresher courses or continuing professional development other than flicking through The Lancet over a sherry on a Sunday afternoon. Imagine what a blow it would be if you desperately needed penicillin and your GP hadn't realised it had been invented in 1928!
These days, it seems incredible that there was no form of continuous testing, mentoring and development of those who looked after our lives. Equally it seems incredible that 20 years ago there was no formal training & competence scheme in existence for those who looked after our financial health.
Fortunately times have changed and as a result the challenges facing firms have multiplied threefold. In order to respond to these demands firms need to:
• encourage their staff and advisers to undertake continuing professional development (CPD) when they already feel that they know what they need to know
• make the training relevant and interesting
• provide evidence that the training has taken place and been effective.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it ….
One problem is that staff are under more pressure than ever before to perform in the workplace. Economic restrictions have meant that in most areas of the industry leavers are no longer being replaced because of increasing budgetary constraints, additional resource requisitions are also being deferred until the end of the year and more work than ever before is being loaded onto a smaller number of people. In these circumstances it seems to many firms that time taken out for training - when the business may be moving forward at a perfectly acceptable basis day-by-day - is an unacceptable disruption to the working day and frankly a waste of time.
However, this is an unacceptable attitude and one which needs to be tackled with understanding yet firmness. The clear message that must be re-iterated is that CPD is essential and not simply to be viewed as an expensive luxury.
One of the problems that trainers and compliance professionals have is that CPD is treated as a "lump" offering with a mandate for say 50 hours CDP per year. When left as this “lump” (and I am as guilty of this as the next person) what could have been an enjoyable stress-free bite-size chunk of 1 hour per week becomes one and a half weeks purgatory at the end of the training year.
So what can firms do to try and maximise time and efficiency whilst incorporating CPD? The trick is to make CPD as part of normal everyday office life as is possible.
Here as some key tips for making this work:
• publicise the CPD scheme
• write it into everyone's contract of employment or job description as part of their responsibilities towards themselves and the company
• include discussion of CPD progress at appraisals and progress reviews - by including the topic on your check-list of items to cover it will automatically and naturally come up in the conversation and you will have done that vital "CPD is business as usual" manoeuvre.
Make it interesting
Remember those dull afternoons of sitting in front of some poor trainer who has been through the rudiments of Anti Money Laundering about 20 times already and is desperate to put some life and enthusiasm into their voice but just can't summon the energy? I should know, on numerous occasions I have been that trainer and there are times when I don’t know whether I feel sorrier for myself or the audience.
It is a fact of life that there are certain essential pieces of training that the best prepared firms run routinely each year such as:
• Anti Money Laundering - to keep the directors out of prison
• Treating Customers Fairly - to reassure the FSA that we are all on message on this vital initiative
• Data Security - to keep the information commissioner at bay and
• Diversity - to mitigate the impact of any employment dispute.
All in all, that's a fair few hours of generic training quite apart from increasing skills, knowledge and briefing your staff on new products. But harking back to my point of trying to make this learning interesting, technology is one handy tool that we can use to positive effect.
Serious Learning
Did you know that the average age of a person who plays computer games are now in their mid 30s? No longer the province of the younger person alone, more mature people are delving into the world of virtual reality and as techniques, screens and ability of the graphics has increased, it is like entering another world.
In our Anti Money Laundering game, for example, you become a secret agent having to enter differing scenarios to test your own knowledge of Anti Money Laundering processes and practices against some very dodgy looking new clients, ranging from a nightclub owner to a co-employee who can suddenly afford a Ferrari. Learning in a completely safe environment, the player moves from scenario to scenario, understanding what is expected of them. At the end of each scenario is complete feedback on the right outcomes and the learning messages are enforced.
The upshot of this is a set of highly interactive, realistic and meaningful interactive scenarios that result in a good level of immersive learning combined with an element of fun. These games are far superior to conventional E learning which has an 80% non-completion rate. Instead, Serious Learning players play each simulation on average of 4.5 times.
Back in 2006, Gartner predicted that "Game based learning can significantly accelerate the transfer and application of knowledge. Enterprises should leverage the scalability and immersion characteristics of games to accelerate the time to competency and depth of competency. By 2011, gaming will emerge as a critical component in a majority of corporate learning solutions."
Of course we firmly believe the rhetoric behind this statement but think that there is no need for firms to wait until 2011 so have developed this concept to be available now. The beauty of Serious Learning is that your staff can undertake this at their desks, without the need for drawing people together for traditional class-room style teach-ins.
Evidence that the training has taken place - and been effective
Well it is easy enough to evidence that the training has taken place as a good training aid will feed into your systems to provide the evidence of who has undertaken the training how long it lasted, what their results were.
Demonstrating that it has been effective is a bigger ask, remember the old adage that you can lead a horse to water, however there is more to CPD and training than just sheep-dipping your colleagues through the essentials each year.
One of the roles designated in our company is to write our Industry News Flash each week, and as part of that research all the output from FSA has to be read each week and reviewed alongside nine other websites including the ABI, CML, FOS, FSSC, BERR and FSCS to summarise what's latest and exciting in the development of regulation. I am continually amazed by the pace of change in regulation and it is important that colleagues are made fully aware of these so that they can plan themselves. Reading something as comprehensive a document as this would certainly count towards any intelligent and meaningful CPD. This could be implemented by individual firms or there are opportunities out there for firms to join circulation lists to distribute to their workforce.
Remember, in a dramatically changing landscape in the workplace, knowledge is power and a force for positive development. CPD is an integral part of that and you need to be serious about it.
