We all take days away from work in order to connect with our friends and family, do a few jobs around the house, visit new and interesting places and just to refill our cups and get some rest. But how many of us would consider using our hard-earned leave away from work for a professional development day; a day where you take a step back to reflect on the direction of travel for your career and consider where it’s headed and how best to achieve your goals?
We’d wager that the answer is not many!
So, in today’s blog, in the month of September, which for many of us, feels like more of a New Year than January, we thought we’d offer you 5 reasons why we think a professional development day is a really great idea.
1. Reflective practice will leave you better equipped to do a great job in your current role.
Most of us will find our working days flash by and if we’ve made a reasonable dent in our to do list, we’re winning at work! But, it’s very rare for most people to allow themselves time in their busy schedules to think about the work they complete on a daily basis and whether it needs to be changed, improved or tweaked and how well aligned our skillset and knowledge is to making these necessary changes.
Taking the time to critique your own performance and to highlight parts of your workload that you are excelling in or where you have achieved great things, is really important and a big part of how we grow in our careers and how we improve as employees, colleagues and indeed as accountants.
2. Renewed focus and direction will ensure you’re re-energised in your current role.
Walking into the office or logging on at home, the day after you’ve spent a whole day reflecting on and planning out your career, you’ll undoubtedly apply a new focus and energy to your work.
If you’ve been finding yourself feeling bored, unchallenged or lacking in motivation at work, a personal development day can be just the tonic to help you re-inject some enthusiasm and positive energy into your work life.
Even if you decide that your direction of travel needs to be away from your current job, being energised and motivated until you find a new one is no bad thing. You’ll feel better for it we’re sure and you’ll find your mindset is better suited to smashing interviews out of the park and securing a new role in practice.
3. Taking time to assess your desired career trajectory means you’re more likely to follow it!
We all have the best intentions, but failing to invest time to check that our daily decisions and actions are aligned with our intentions usually results in going off on a tangent.
If you know where you want to be in six months time, a year, five years etc. and you regularly step away to check you’re on track, you’re much more likely to achieve your goals and ambitions.
4. Professional development will increase your chances of promotion.
We’ve already mentioned that taking time out for your professional development will leave you re-energised and more motivated. And that will undoubtedly be picked up by your supervisors at work. Your line managers are likely to be impressed with your attitude and mindset and you’ll end up being first in line when those promotions come around.
5. Taking time away from being reactive will mean you’re able to be proactive in your career.
If you don’t take time to step back from the day to day, you’ll find you get into the habit of simply responding to problems and working towards the goals and ambitions of others. Being proactive in your career and taking regular time out to benchmark how you are performing, how you are being rewarded and where you want to go next means you’re much more likely to live a professional life with no regrets!
And if you’re not sure how to make the most of a day you set aside for professional development, we strongly recommend you book a no obligation call with one of our team to benchmark your career as an accountant in public practice. We’ll help you to understand if your current situation stands up against market trends and rates and how accessible other opportunities might be for you and exactly what they could look like.
Knowledge really is power and investing this time every six months could mean that you’re in the role you’ve always been working towards, much much sooner. To book a call, email our admin team at info@publicpracticerecruitment.co.uk. Don’t worry if you’ve left it late, we can often work to a tight deadline.
