Professional development – what is it and how to support it?
Professional development is the process of raising qualifications by acquiring knowledge, skills and experience. It is mobility horizontally, vertically or deep into the structure of the organization by developing existing competences and acquiring new ones.
The process of professional development and acquiring new skills lasts a lifetime. Lifelong learning shows how the idea of education has changed. Acquiring a profession in adolescence does not determine the entire professional career.
Currently, employees have many opportunities to improve their competences:
– postgraduate studies
– webinar
– internet courses
– industry training
– conferences
– case study
Professional development is connected with the necessity to take up new challenges. Many people fear that they will not meet the requirements, deliberately giving up career development. Development blocking factors:
– poor self-esteem- routine
– lack of motivation
– fear of failure
– no possibility
– a load of duties
There are several types of career development:
– type of specialist (high degree of commitment)
– spiral type (moving every few years from one activity to another with the simultaneous development of skills from previous work)
– variable type (frequent changes of jobs that differ from each other)
Professional development is more and more often appreciated by employers who educate their employees in managerial and specialist skills, management style and techniques, work methods and procedures, or customer relations. More and more employers themselves take care of the development of their employees, setting the stages of development in a given organization with them at the very beginning.
Professional development requires appropriate, long-term management. A satisfied, satisfied and appreciated employee is a good and efficient employee.
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