Going for Gold: december19's Majella Lavelle on CPD Gold Accreditation

Last weeks’ news from the IPA that december19 is one of just 35 agencies to attain CPD Gold was a momentous point in the d19 journey, and my own career at the agency. 

Since becoming an IPA member five years ago, we set ourselves a goal to go for Gold as a longer term BHAG, and I felt a personal mission as CPD manager to get as close to Gold as quickly as possible. CPD Gold accreditation recognises agencies who demonstrate that a genuine culture of learning lies at the heart of the business, supports business objectives and the development of their employees both professionally and personally – which sounds like a textbook definition for our agency mantra, placing people at the heart of its business; staff, clients and partners #mediamadehuman.

Facing ‘the pandemic years’, our golden goal for 2020 seemed like a nonsense given remote working and the pressures that brought; so, like every other business we had to look for the opportunities within the challenges and become a little more creative with our approach to learning. Our methods of engaging the full team, had to flex. Hybrid working certainly highlighted that we had missed coming together for any team learning, cross-discipline, in person. Cue a ‘back to the classroom’ weekly schedule, which is just one element of our bespoke learning program which contributed to produce our most compelling CPD year yet:

• Learning hours at a record high of an average 42 hours per person
• 45 % of the agency are Personal Members of the IPA (MIPAs)
• A total of 80 MIPA stars across the agency

As a result, we are proving that we value expertise of all levels on our client business, curating our training to fit our business objectives and give our people the best possible learning experience.

We are all immensely proud of our Gold status, we’ve made a commitment to maintain it and a new longer term (hopefully pandemic free) BHAG for Platinum accreditation.

Congratulations d19ers and thank you!