Dubious Accreditation by CPD Standards
Over recent years, it has become far too easy to find a cheap and easy alternative to almost anything. The problem now is that the cheap and easy alternative has almost become the preferred option to rigor and the real deal.
So how do we illustrate this phenomenon? The most obvious example in the last six months has been the proliferation of so-called ‘GDPR experts’ selling their course or their tool to sort out everyone’s supposed issues with GDPR. It is now becoming obvious that some weird and potentially deadly advice has been peddled by individuals who had never heard about data protection or an individual’s privacy rights a year ago.
Accreditation
Another worrying example is accreditation services run by those who have no real understanding of what they are supposed to be doing or the damage they inflict on their clients and the unsuspecting public by promoting their sub-standard and, in some cases, fraudulent services. They pride themselves on saying they are the cheapest and easiest accreditation to obtain on the market and that it will take you approximately five minutes to pass their so-called assessment. The problem is that no accreditation has taken place and all that is happening is a transaction of cash for badge. Now that is definitely going to be worth the multi-colour logos they offer, isn’t it! Especially as they have convinced their happy clients to go on social media and say they are wonderful, producing so-called review data which is completely skewed and unsupported. Would you really want to be associated with an organisation like this?
There are more examples around at present but there is only one thing that they all prove and that is that you get what you pay for. If an organisation is so desperate that they want a badge and they want it now and they are not prepared to either do any work to achieve it and most certainly don’t want to wait to see if they have been successful, especially when they have previously failed a more robust interrogation, then the cheap and easy route will cover their requirements because that is all they are prepared to invest in their future.
Risk
The risks attached to choosing cheap and easy options over the rigorous and difficult path are both short and long term. In both cases your reputation is at risk as, at some point, the lack of quality in the cheap/fake versions may become obvious. Although it is a difficult and expensive path in time and money to demonstrate the ‘fake’ in law, it will inevitably happen. There is also a risk that those who choose to go down this route, and be visibly associated with a dubious brand, will eventually face questions as to their own trustworthiness and decision-making processes which chose the cheap rather than the robust option.
If you would like to talk about this to us we would love to hear from you and have your comments or maybe you have an experience that you are currently facing that you would like to share with us – please do contact us – admin@cpdstandards.com
Thank you,
The CPDSO Team
