Another CIPR CPD cycle completed - why Evergreen invests in professional development

With the CIPR annual CPD deadline just passed, Evergreen PR Managing Director, Leigh Greenwood, reflects on his CPD journey.

Last month I completed my 11th straight CPD cycle with the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t pushed the deadline. Time runs out at midnight on 31st March and I finished my last exercise at 10pm. I confess I’ve run it closer in the past.

However, while I may not always be the best at logging my learning as I go, I find the programme provides me with added motivation to capture, distil and communicate what I have learned throughout the year - so that I can put it into practice in my work.

I began My CPD journey in 2012-13, sort of by accident. Before that I’d been too focused on various musical projects to take on extra curricular learning.

However, I was persuaded to do the CIPR postgraduate diploma by my manager (thanks Jenny) and motivated to try extra hard as a gifted colleague of mine was also doing it (thanks Megan).

What I learned transformed my practice as a communications professional. I loved learning about communications models like Grunig’s Excellence Theory, using frameworks like PESTLE and Power Interest grids for the first time and conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses. My final project explored the growing challenge of online brand impersonation and involved a snowball sample survey and interviews that I proactively secured with communications leaders at Walt Disney, Greggs, Primark and Auto Trader. I got a Distinction.

Having completed the Diploma, for the first time I felt armed with the theoretical knowledge to underpin the outcomes-focused instinct that I’d always had.

I put my skills to the test the following year (2014), following the campaign planning principles I’d learned to the letter for a public health campaign for Slimming World about the links between alcohol and obesity - the campaign was a remarkable success, gaining extensive top tier media coverage, engaging tens of thousands of people to use an online interactive quiz I’d designed and kick starting conversations and relationships with various Government and public health bodies. It was the first award-winning campaign I’d done and the CIPR Diploma laid the foundations for it.

Completing the CIPR Diploma gave me an automatic 60 CPD points that year, meaning my first cycle was complete without me even thinking about it. Knowing that if I missed a year it would reset back to zero (the CPD equivalent to Wordle’s ‘streak’ feature perhaps) I completed the following year’s cycle too and so my professional development journey began.

Over the years, the CIPR’s CPD programme has pushed me to expand my understanding in numerous areas, including evaluation, leadership and behavioural science - but always with the singular focus of being a more effective professional.

The impact that this has had on me is why Evergreen places such value on CPD. Every employee gets the opportunity to join a professional association like the CIPR or CIM and have their membership fee paid by Evergreen and we are also corporate members of the PRCA, too.

We also ringfence an annual training budget of £1,500 per employee to help ensure we are all as knowledgeable and effective as we can be. This dedication to learning is really satisfying and interesting for us as individuals, but it also drives us forward as an agency, informing our approaches, our methods and our activities. Ultimately, this understanding of latest thinking and best practice ensures we are always best placed to deliver on our mission to achieve tangible outcomes for our clients so that they can go on to improve people’s health.