Ask any principal what they actually do to keep their team's CPD current, and the honest answer is usually the same. They chase. A reminder in a team meeting. A message to the one person who never gets around to it. A mental note to check whether so-and-so renewed. It is low-value work, it is endless, and it lands on the person least suited to it: you.
It does not have to. There is a cleaner way to run team CPD, where the chasing happens but you are not the one doing it. This is the part of Archer's agency model that principals tend to like most, so it is worth explaining exactly how it works.
The problem with the principal as the chaser
When the principal is the one chasing, two things go wrong. First, it eats your time on something that should never reach your desk. Second, it puts you in the wrong role with your own team. You become the person nagging adults about training, which is a strange dynamic with people you also need to lead and motivate.
And it is fragile. The whole system depends on you remembering. The moment you are busy, travelling, or focused on a big deal, the chasing stops and the dates start to drift. That is exactly when a CPD deadline slips past unnoticed.
The de-chasing mechanic, step by step
Archer's model is built so the follow-up happens automatically, and it happens to the right person. Here is the sequence.
- Reminders go to the staff member. When CPD is due, the agent gets the reminder directly, by email and SMS. They own the task, so they get the prompt.
- Archer follows up the learner first. If the staff member does not act, Archer chases them, not you. The follow-up lands on the person who needs to do the work.
- The principal is notified only after two ignored attempts. If two follow-up attempts get no response from the staff member, then you are told. That is the trigger for you to step in, and not a moment sooner.
The result is simple. The chasing still happens, so nothing slips. But it happens between Archer and the learner, and you only enter the picture when something genuinely needs your authority behind it.
Stay in control without being the nag
This is the line that matters: you stay in control without chasing staff. Control is about the outcome, knowing your whole team is current and seeing the progress. It was never about you personally sending the third reminder.
You keep full visibility through team progress reporting. You can see who has finished, who is in progress, and who is due soon. What changes is that the day-to-day nudging is off your plate. Your team also gets a better experience, because the reminders come from their training provider as a normal part of the course, rather than as pressure from the boss. For the wider picture on what keeping a team compliant involves, read the agency principal's guide to keeping your team compliant.
Why follow-up lifts completion
Most CPD does not get missed because someone refuses to do it. It gets missed because it is easy to put off and nobody is gently keeping it in front of the person. Take away the follow-up and completion drops. Build the follow-up in, and it climbs.
That is the whole point of sending reminders to the learner and following up directly. It keeps the task visible to the one person who can finish it, without relying on you to be the prompt. If you want to understand why staff stall on training in the first place, see why staff don't finish their training and how to lift completion.
One relationship across the team
Because this runs through a single agency relationship, you also get bulk enrolment pricing, a dedicated account manager, and compliance tracking that follows each person's real deadline. For a team licensed across more than one state, that matters: NSW, QLD and the ACT each set their own CPD rule, and the reminder system tracks each person against the right one. The state-by-state detail is in our CPD state guide.
Your next step
If you are currently the CPD chaser for your office, that role can move off your desk this week. Reminders to the learner, follow-up by Archer, escalation to you only when it is genuinely needed.
See how agency training works, or call our Australian-based team and we will set up tracking and reminders for your whole team.
