People Inc. Case Study

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for Architects

Introduction

Recording employee Continuing Professional Development Points (CPD) was a critical requirement for our client, an award winning Architectural practice in London. As part of their installation of People Inc. HR Software we were able to help them store and manage their employee data and processes but also set up an easy to use system which allows them to record and analyse the CPD progress of all their employees.

What is CPD?

CPD or Continuing Professional Development is where employees are required to ensure their professional skills are kept up-to-date in order to maintain their professional memberships, or in the case of Architects their RIBA Chartered Membership.

RIBA Chartered Members are required to undertake 35 hours of learning per year and meet the following obligations:

• Half of their CPD must be structured – gained via face-to-face or online activities with learning aims and outcomes.
• 20 Hours of this must come from the ten mandatory RIBA Core Curriculum CPD Topics
• Acquire at least 100 learning points which reflect their assessment of what they achieved from the activity
• Record and track CPD activities on the RIBA CPD Website.

Our customer wanted to be able to help their employees manage this information to ensure they keep up-to-date and achieve the required number of points to meet the obligations of the CPD as they had no easy way of recording and tracking their employees CPD status.

How did we help?

Using the tools within People Inc. we were able to help this process in a number of different ways:

• Create a Mandatory Training Matrix based on a Job Role to ensure employees training needs were identified and managed when they joined the business (or moved to a new role that required additional training needs).

• Assigned Expiry periods for any courses (not just for their CPD) to automate the reminders for when employees need to attend some form of refresher training.

• A facility to assign Structured and Unstructured learning points to any course.

• An area to calculate the target points for the period and the total number of points achieved, taken from their training records. This also provides a balance to show how many points they still need to gain within the period.

• A suite of reports to help the Employer and Employees’ track their Training and CPD Status

• Employees can also track their CPD status and view their training history via the Employee Self Service which is also used for booking holidays and updating personal contact details.

Tracking CPD Status using People Inc.

Summary

By using a combination of the standard tools included in People Inc. with a small element of customisation we were able to meet the exact requirements of the customer.

Not only did this help them track their employees’ CPD status, it also helped them to be more efficient when co-ordinating training courses, easily identifying all employees with the same training need or with a similar target date to maximise on attendees on course bookings therefore reducing costs and effort.

For any organisation looking to record and report on training and CPD activity, People Inc provides simple tools for busy HR teams. We offer a comprehensive implementation, training and on going support programme to ensure all users become experts in using the software in the most efficient and professional way.

Contact us to find out how People Inc. can help your organisation keep track of employees Training and Continuing Professional Development by calling 01242 663974 or email enquiries@peoplefirsthr.co.uk.