Recruiting Managers with the Lure of CPD

Increasingly managerial posts are being advertised with CPD (Continuing Professional Development) as a stated benefit alongside the usual job benefits of bonus, car, life assurance etc. Yet CPD as a job perk, rather than an integral element of the person specification, not only challenges the underlying premise of CPD; it is morally inappropriate. While CPD has become a universal term, whose use covers a wide range of professions (e.g. law, accounting, architecture, teaching, engineering, town planning, and medicine), in this paper, we specifically focus on CPD for managers, particularly examining why managers should be concerned with CPD and discussing the implications for managers of CPD being specified as a job benefit.