Helen Nicholas looks at learnings and development over her career and how a lot of her more meaningful professional development came from learning at work.
Over the last few years, I have held several different internally focused roles. A lot of my learning and development occurs organically through those roles and the work I am doing.
Although there is a place for more formal, structured CPD learning activities, these are not generally where
I have felt the greatest impact. As I look at how I have grown and developed, I recognise that a lot of my meaningful professional development comes from learning at work.
Here are a few examples:
Last year, I joined our internal group of professionalism experts. Our regular meeting cycle provides many opportunities to expand and deepen my knowledge and experience of professionalism topics and challenges as I grow into this role: reading the papers in advance, formulating and sharing my own thoughts and listening to others in the meetings.
By volunteering to take the lead in some of the work we do – including responding to consultations and developing training for other colleagues – I’ve been able to create my own learning opportunities.
Reflecting on how my original proposal or draft has evolved with the input and views of others helps me shape my approach for tackling the next project that comes up.
I’ve been focusing on building confidence so I have a greater impact in meetings. I don’t rule out exploring structured learning activities to support this, however, a lot of my recent development here has come from reflecting on my own experience in meetings.
After reflecting on some meetings that could have gone better, and meetings where I had felt more able to contribute, I recognised that my confidence and impact increased when I was fully prepared.
I now carve out enough focus time to prepare ahead of key meetings. This is particularly important for days when I feel I am rushing from meeting to meeting.
In a recent meeting, I established myself as an active contributor by asking a pointed question quite early on. Throughout the meeting, I was asked to provide input, and I was able to make a valuable overall contribution.
This wasn’t an intentional tactic at the time, but is a technique that I will be trying again. I also actively observe how others behave in meetings, to see what behaviours I can emulate to increase my impact.
As for many actuaries, communication is a key aspect of many of my roles. Having recently completed the IFoA’s Growth Mindset for Actuaries course, I have been emboldened to try different ways of communicating to increase my reach and impact.
By trying different techniques and approaches, then reflecting on how they have gone, I have been able to expand my communication toolkit and communicate more effectively. The role of reflection is key to recognising these types of learning. Not everything I’ve tried has been successful, but that’s okay. I have still learned something from the experience.
I often ask myself, could I do something slightly different to be more effective? Or, on reflection, would an alternative approach have been more appropriate in that scenario?
Have I perfected the art of capturing all these more experiential learning at work experiences within my CPD log? Not yet.
They can be difficult to quantify, which has been a bit of a barrier. So this year I am focusing on identifying the learning outcomes and articulating the skills and behaviours I have gained through learning at work.
I’ll be keeping a separate log of experiential learnings without any attempt at quantification, to sit alongside a log of my more formal/structured and quantifiable learning activities.
The aim is that my log will help to fuel a more fruitful reflective practice discussion at the end of the CPD year, where I will reflect on the skills I’ve purposely targeted and how I am implementing my learning in practice.
The CPD scheme enables me to find meaningful learning opportunities to address my personal learning needs, including the learning I gain through work. That’s something I really enjoy.
