The SII’s 2008 survey of the trends in continuing professional development (CPD) in the financial services industry has shown a strong push towards compulsory CPD amongst firms.
In its latest report “Trends in Continuing Professional Development 2008” SII examined attitudes and practices specifically associated with CPD amongst its members, both firms and individuals. The report is based on a survey of 1,200 individual practitioners and 18 firms.
When asked “Should CPD be compulsory for the industry?” firms showed a strong belief that CPD should be mandatory throughout the sector, up 63% to 83% since 2004. The survey also showed that many firms are already being proactive in this regard with the results showing a significant rise in the number of firms with compulsory CPD schemes. Almost three quarters of all firms surveyed who have a CPD scheme reported that it was compulsory, up from 60% in 2004 to 73% in 2008.
Responses from practitioners on compulsory CPD mirrors the evidence from firms, with over 80% of individuals now participating in a compulsory CPD scheme, as opposed to 68% in 2004.
Another change has been the rise and influence of compliance staff who now have a much greater role in monitoring CPD, with 40% of firms designating this function to their compliance department – a rise of 23% over the four year period. Previously the HR function had the major organisational responsibility for monitoring CPD, however their responsibility has declined by nearly 20%.
The strong rise in the value placed on mentoring and coaching as formally-recognised continuing professional development (CPD) soft skills by financial services firms is one of the surprising outcomes of the Securities & Investment Institute (SII) latest report on CPD in the industry.
When the SII undertook a similar survey in 2004 formal training, events and conferences were recognised as having a CPD value by 75% of firms. In 2008 this has declined to 50%. However, there has been a marked increase in the value placed on mentoring and coaching with a rise of 38%. No firms had formally-recognised soft skills in 2004, whereas in 2008 44% did. The rise in mentoring is matched only by e-learning which has increased by 37%.
The SII survey also notes the introduction of testing to ensure that learning has been retained, with over 36% of firms reporting some form of formal or informal test at the expense of self-assessment, which fell from 50% to 38%. The overall position is that 88% of firms believe that testing should take place either annually or biennially.
Simon Culhane FSI, Chief Executive of SII said, “The importance of continuing maintenance of competence has been made clear through the FSA’s Retail Distribution Review. One of the most striking trends in our report is the recognition that CPD is much broader than just training courses and the responses from firms show the increasing significance and recognition of e-learning in formal CPD schemes and the emergence of soft skills as a recognised development activity.”
