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The Benefits Of Attending Online Construction CPD Courses

The Benefits Of Attending Online Construction CPD Courses

While you might roll your eyes at the thought of hosting Continuing Professional Development (CPD) or trying to encourage architects and specifiers to sign up to your latest online construction course, it’s all for a good reason.

Helping you ensure best practice continues in the construction industry, CPDs are a fantastic means of educating your prospects on changing regulations, product updates or the latest news in your particular sector.

Though your prospects might see it as the least important thing they need to do, there are considerable benefits in encouraging attendance to CPDs that can make significant changes to the construction industry.

In this blog, we discuss what a CPD is, why they’re so important and discuss how you can make the most of your next online CPD, ensuring architects and specifiers are taking advantage of fast-moving technology in the construction sector.

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Educating Your Prospects Through CPD

When you left school, college, or university, you thought you were done with education, didn’t you? 

After receiving those pieces of paper, grading your ability through a series of letters and numbers, you thought you were ready for the big bad world, but you were heading into the world of construction…

Just as you were starting your construction journey, taking note of your target audience at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), suddenly you’re faced with the constant need to educate your audience. 

No one knows their product like you, so why not further educate your ideal customers?

CPD is a requirement for RIBA members and helps you educate your prospects, helping them become more aware of changes in the construction sector. And while they might not be universally loved, CPD’s are essential to continue to practice in the industry when push comes to shove. 

 

What Is A CPD?

Available throughout multiple industries to continue developing and self-educating, CPD or continued professional development is the term used to describe this process, helping to develop their skillset. 

Coming in a range of formats such as online webinars, in-person training events, physical conferences, or one-to-one workshops, CPDs are available for whatever skills professionals are looking to refine. 

As part of the construction industry, architects and other design professionals are required through their institutes to undergo a designated amount of CPD each year.  

However, it would be fair to say that this requirement of completing a CPD is often more of a burden for industry professionals, who would see it as more of a ‘box ticking’ exercise than a truly essential undertaking. 

According to RIBA, there are multiple ways in which you can complete your annual CPD responsibilities. These include, but aren’t limited to, 35 hours of relevant learning each year, undertaking structured CPD and spending time on mandatory RIBA core curriculum topics.

You can view RIBA’s list of online construction CPDs here. 

So, although the sound of those three letters – CPD – is enough for you to roll your eyes, there are huge benefits in completing them.

 

Why Are CPDs So Important?

We’ve briefly touched on the necessity of attending CPDs and how their governing bodies often require your target market to attend these professional development courses, but we haven’t mentioned why they are so important. 

There is a litany of benefits that CPDs can bring for both architects, construction product manufacturers and the industry as a whole. 

Picture the scene; you’re a manufacturer of industrial flooring. Recent regulations have changed how your flooring has to be manufactured to make it safer, but your customers aren’t aware of this and have turned their nose at the slight increase in cost. 

To address this, you host a CPD which not only introduces the new regulation, which is set to become law in the coming months but also introduces your new regulation meeting product. 

This CPD allows you to educate your current customers, helping to explain in more detail the regulation changes and what needs to be done by architects and specifiers in the meantime. It also enables you to create another avenue of promoting your product, albeit indirectly.

This example is a straightforward explanation of what a construction CPD can achieve. Going beyond education and helping improve the construction industry, they also allow your customers and prospects to become much more effective in the industry, spreading their knowledge to further fields. 

Only through this spread of education via construction CPDs can the industry begin to grow for the better. 

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Future-Proofing With Online Construction CPDs

If you’re thinking ‘hold on, I don’t want to open up my offices and turn them into temporary construction colleges’ then fear not – In the past 18-months, the world has changed dramatically; enough for you to be able to offer alternatives. 

With a BBC Report highlighting that just 12% of the working population wanting to return to full-time work and 72% wanting a more hybrid combination of online and in-person working, this can easily be reflected in your CPD offerings. 

With the working world familiar with the world of Zoom, Teams, Skype and any other number of remote working and presentation platforms available, nothing is stopping you from hosting your CPD. 

Not only does host a construction CPD online allow you to reach more potential customers, those that might not have been able to attend in a traditional sense, it also shows your construction product businesses thought leadership, painting you as a true industry leader.

With CPDs, you’re not just future-proofing yourself, you’re helping future proof the entire construction industry. 

 

Conclusion

CPDs in the construction industry are essential.

Whether attendees are unenthusiastic about them not, they’re a proven way to help promote best practices within the construction industry and ensure the latest information is known and understood at all levels. 

Not only do they help continue to drive the industry forward, ensuring tragedies like Grenfell never happen again, but they ensure a level playing field. Construction CPDs make architects and specifiers, those that are making the tough construction decisions, far more educated and responsible, aware of all the latest trends and regulations within the construction sector. 

The post-COVID world has opened up further opportunities for CPDs to be completed, too. There’s now no excuse to not be able to host a CPD, let alone attend one. With the normalisation of Zoom meetings and webinars, it’s easier than ever before to be able to educate architects and specifiers. 

If you’re looking at creating and hosting an online construction CPD, then get in touch with us today, and start educating your prospects. 

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About Insynth

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