What is professional development? Professional development are opportunities and experiences the support your growth in your career or profession. Your employer may recognize the need to create a culture of learning to provide continuous professional development, but it’s tantamount to your success to be part of your own development and take an active role in it.

The importance for organizations to plan and deliver customized and individualized professional development has been identified and addressed in many professional publications, including Deloitte research reports and in a Harvard Business Review article. The research shows the importance of making learning a core value to support employees to develop their strengths and weaknesses.

If companies don’t meet the development needs of employees, retention is lower and overall performance and employee engagement is down.  
While some organizations have recognized this, others may not be following through on doing what they know they should. Some of the reasons organizational learning falls short is because of other priorities that seem more important. This may include a focus on immediate challenges with a “putting out fires” approach – rather than looking ahead and planning for the long term. In some cases, it’s because organizations don’t have the resources or knowledge to build a learning culture and professional development program.

Regardless of where your company is on the continuum of professional development, you can easily plan a full curriculum of learning for yourself that identifies goals that align with your job and/or are directed toward a personal career path for future opportunities.  

You can be the master of your own professional development and possibly partner with your place of work. We are no longer in an environment where we need to be told what we need to learn or how to learn it. Both personally and professionally, you can be self-directed and focused on what you need to know and identify where you can get it. This is easier to do now than ever before. There are countless avenues for finding free or low-cost learning options, through colleges, libraries, bootcamps and online certificate programs. 

As organizations begin to realize the importance of continuous professional development, both as a bottom-line savings and to retain employees, you can take charge now of your learning to ensure you remain on the cutting edge of your expertise for professional growth and career advancement.