CPLP and the future of our profession – from fuzzy to focused

What does the training department do? How do you measure workplace learning?  If someone is a teacher, can’t they do training? Can’t you solve any business problem by offering training around it?  What is an adult learner and what makes them unique?

These are questions asked everyday in businesses like yours and mine.  Increasingly, there is a need to give structure and consistency to the answers.  Much like the HR profession moved from being the “office management and picnic planning department” to the structured, defined, complex function it is today, our field also needs to evolve to the next level.  

Certification programs exist in many industries and many companies.  Increasingly, business leaders want a designation process to help define the best, the brightest, the most expert resource prepared to handle the most complex challenges in a particular field, a subject or a process.  This helps to define industry norms, best practices and establish standards.

The CPLP will help us to prove the knowledge and value in our field.  The future will continue to change at a rapid pace, and self employment will continue to increase.  Those most prepared will find it easiest to adapt to these rapidly changing demands. The CPLP helps define the language our business will speak, and will help each of us define the future.  
 
Just like the cobbler’s children never have shoes, we in the learning profession have long been guilty of operating on “tribal knowledge”, while counseling our customers to document and organize the processes and practices they operate on.  The CPLP gives us the foundation for defining and building excellence.  It brings the workplace learning profession out of fuzzy and into focus.