A development plan helps employees acquire new skills and expand their talent for other roles within your organization.
With a well-crafted employee development plan, you can give your employees clear directions and opportunities to improve their skills and advance in their careers. With a broader skill set, your employees will have more tools to advance your business. You and your employees will both benefit.
Professional development can also be called employee development. Employee development is a joint effort between employers and employees to improve the skills and knowledge of workers. This program provides employees the education and training they need to progress in their careers. It can include internal and external learning and individual and group opportunities.
A development plan for your employees can help them close the gap between their current situation and their desired future. Managers play an important role in helping employees achieve their goals by creating employee development plans.
It is better to train your current employees than look for new ones. A good employee development plan will help you guide your employees into the right roles for them and your company.
What is Employee Development?
Employee development is a method by which employees acquire new skills, broaden their knowledge and grow in their careers with the support and guidance of their employers. Staff development is an integral part of employee satisfaction. Employers should encourage and guide staff development and be part of employees’ career goals and goal-setting.
Employees can develop new skills and abilities to take on a new role or reskill themselves to fill a gap within the organization.
Employee development and growth can take many forms. These include onboarding, classroom training, online training, mentoring and Coaching, experiencing different parts of an organization, attending industry conferences, networking, and cross-training.
What is an Employee Development Plan?
A development plan for your employees is a way to help them improve their skills and knowledge. It allows your employees to perform at their best and prepares them for future opportunities in your organization.
Not all employee-development plans result in internal promotions. Some employees wish to progress professionally by expanding their role in the current department or moving laterally into another. Management is not for everyone. Others may be unwilling to take on a leadership role. You should customize each employee’s development plan according to their skills, needs, and wants.
A document that outlines the goals and objectives an employee should be focusing on while working for a company is called an employee development plan. The plan should be customized to each individual to ensure they reach their fullest potential in the company.
There are many benefits to having a development plan for your employees. You can help your employees understand their responsibilities by taking the time to map out goals. Clarity can increase motivation and encourage employees to take more responsibility for their careers.
An employee development plan software can also be a useful reference tool to help you and your team members meet their development goals. You can use the plan as they grow in their roles to ensure they stay on track. You will also have an easy-to-use resource for them if they need to ask questions or have concerns.
Types of Employee Development Plans
Here are some types of employee development plans:
- Performance-Based Plan: The purpose of this plan is to improve an employee’s performance. The plan identifies the areas where an employee needs to improve. It sets new goals, measures progress and creates strategies for achieving these employee development goals.
- Succession Plan: The Human Resources team develops a training plan to prepare new and younger employees for these critical roles.
- Ad Hoc: This informal development plan for employees is tailored to the individual, focusing on their needs. This plan is for employees who want to improve their skill sets to advance their careers.
- Plans for Leadership Development: A leadership development plan is an elaborate and strategic plan that helps staff develop and acquire leadership skills as they prepare to take on management roles at work.
The Importance of Development Planning
Planning for development is a powerful tool to turn performance issues into growth opportunities.
Empower Growth
Gartner’s research shows that employees seek “growth opportunities, to feel trusted and empowered, and to be valued.” A development plan can show them you care about their success. The development plan can empower the employee by showing them how much you appreciate them. It is beneficial to both the employee and your company.
Motivate your Employees
Employees will be discouraged if they receive negative feedback without a plan for moving forward. A development plan can be a positive way to empower an employee who is struggling. This plan can help boost employees’ morale and confidence as they overcome obstacles holding them back.
Improve Retention
Employee retention can be improved by supporting employees’ success and growth. According to a LinkedIn survey conducted in 2019, 94 percent would remain at a company if it invested in its employees’ learning. The employees want to feel like they are progressing with their careers, not just doing work without any feedback or way of moving forward. Employees are more likely to stay with your company if they believe they have a bright career ahead of them.
Four types of Development Actions
The development actions are the steps an employee takes to support a goal of personal growth and achieve a desired change in behavior. You must decide what action you will take to achieve your desired result. We will look at four different types of interventions that you can include in your development action plan.
Promote Educational Self-Development.
Self-development can be a great way to help employees improve their skills and performance. Self-development activities include independent education, such as:
- Reading: Employees may choose books related to their development goals to gain new knowledge, a fresh perspective, or to learn the basics in an unfamiliar field. Print and audiobooks are available for a wide range of soft and hard skills.
- Observing Others: Following someone with considerable expertise in the area or skill where the employee wants to develop and grow can be very valuable. An employee struggling to complete an unfamiliar task could reach out to an experienced professional who has been in the same position for a while and can demonstrate how they do it.
- Attending Educational Events: Employees may also attend educational events to increase their knowledge. For example, this could include attending conferences or meetings of professional associations. These are great ways to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and thinking in your field and rekindle employees’ passion for their job.
Improve Feedback and Coaching.
You may already be providing feedback to an employee on their performance if you are creating a development plan for them. If you want to help an employee improve in a particular area, you might need to give more detailed and frequent feedback for some time.
You can also ask others to provide feedback or Coaching, like trusted colleagues or peers. Consider asking customers to give feedback about an employee’s performance in dealing with a problem that involves interacting with customers. This feedback can be extremely valuable for an employee willing to listen and want to take action.
Provide Opportunities for Skill Practice.
Employees can use practice to improve their performance. Practice can lead to improvements, even if it doesn’t make you perfect. You can provide practice opportunities to your employees and allow them to use their usual work.
Provide employees with sample projects similar to the work they will or plan to do when they become qualified. It allows them to develop their skills in a safer environment without the pressure of real-life situations. Offer detailed feedback to the employees on the sample work so they can use it in future tasks.
Assign Development Projects and Tasks.
Consider assigning an employee a project that will let them practice their new skill. You may allow employees to lead a project while working on their leadership skills. Assign a task to an employee who is improving their technical skills.
Special assignments or projects must be challenging. They should push an individual beyond their comfort zone and force them to stretch their capabilities. This is when significant growth occurs. No wonder 85 percent of professionals in learning and development expect this type of on-the-job learning to continue or increase.
How to Create an Employee Development Plan?
From roll-out to reporting, here are some steps to create an employee development plan.
Begin with a Gap Analysis of your Skills.
To create a plan for employee development, you must first determine where your employees need training. Analyzing training needs can help determine which employees require training and what skills they lack.
The training needs analysis will put your organization’s goals at the forefront of everything that follows. By identifying your strengths (and areas needing improvement), you can streamline your training efforts to maximize their benefits.
Identifying Employees for Career Growth and Leadership Development
Find out which employees are willing to learn and who desire career growth. Concentrate your efforts initially on these employees. You will be able to improve their current skills and invest in management and leadership training when they’re ready.
What about another bonus? Committing to helping your employees achieve their career goals may motivate them to stay with your company.
Alignment with Employee and Corporate Goals
When you identify areas of need, and employees who are interested in growth goals, ensure that your goals for both are linked.
A development plan for employees can only be as effective as the participation of its members. To strengthen your career succession plan, consider the career goals of your employees in general and those specific to your business.
The best way to gauge employee satisfaction is through discussions. Discussions are the best way to determine what employees want and need to learn.
Grow with them
A plan for employee development software should not only focus on the growing areas of your business. It should also take into account the growth of your company and industry.
What is the future of your company?
Ten? Twenty? How many leaders do you need to develop if you expect a huge increase in growth over the next few decades? Are you looking at new services or industry offerings? Do you have the right people in place to help your business grow?
Today, take steps to get the wheels moving.
Templates for Employee Development Plans can Help.
It’s good to know that employee development plans don’t require you to reinvent the wheel. Many templates are available to make your life easier once you decide to go forward.
Employee development plan templates are available in two different types:
- Consider a template for an individual employee growth plan early in your organization’s development. This template helps employees reflect on their career goals and see how they may align with your company.
- A succession plan template can help your company look to the future and determine where to expand or hire. The template also identifies the currently available resources (and whether they should be further developed).
These can be used as a guide for customizing your employee growth and company plans.
Adapt the Learning Opportunities to the Training.
Once you have decided to develop a career plan for your employees, ensure the employee training and development software is appropriate. Consider using different delivery methods for different goals.
Leadership training, for example, could focus on the following:
- You can also find out more about Coaching
- Mentorships
- Cross-training
- Job shadowing
On the other hand, Upskilling uses different tools to increase your employees’ existing skills and knowledge. Consider the following direct, skill-based learning options:
- Microlearning
- On-the-job training
- Augmented Reality
Use the best training tool to get the best results once you know where your company will be headed and who will accompany you.
Use Data to Guide your Decisions and Track Results
You have spent a lot of time developing a plan for employee development. How can you tell if it is working? Monitor the progress of your campaign and devise a plan for resolving any problems.
Meeting with employees regularly to check progress and get feedback about what they want more of (or less of). Identify obstacles that make it difficult to follow through. For example, not enough workday hours or interruptions. Find ways to make training easier and more efficient.
Ensure that your company has a team or person dedicated to tracking the progress of employee development plans. HR professionals and managers can assist if you’re a small business without a full-time employee developer.
Why Employee Development is Important?
Look at the benefits that employee development can bring.
Increases Employee Retention
Your employees will stay on board if you offer them growth opportunities.
LinkedIn says that 94% of your employees will stay longer if they are allowed to learn and develop.
It is particularly true for the millennials, today’s largest group of workers. According to a Deloitte 2020 study, millennials ranked leadership development as the third most important retention strategy.
They want to grow in their organization. Leaders must encourage this desire.
Companies that fail to develop their employees run the risk of losing them.
It Reduces Skill Gaps.
New roles are created in the workplace by implementing new technologies such as AI and automation.
Skills gaps in the local labor markets are the main obstacles to US companies’ adoption of these new technologies.
It’s no wonder that 64% of L&D experts admit that retraining their employees to fill these gaps has become a priority.
Increases Employee Engagement and Productivity
Engagement is a major problem for leaders today. Gallup research found that only 36% of employees are engaged at work.
Lack of engagement can negatively impact well-being, profitability, productivity and turnover.
Two proven methods to build a culture of engagement are career planning and mastering a new skill. These activities help people feel invested and valued in their work.
Key Elements of Employee Development Plans
Here are some important things to consider before you begin your career planning.
- Potential and Readiness: Your employee may have the skills to succeed in a new role but not feel prepared. It could be that they would prefer more training or are going through a major change in their life. This should be considered in any career plans so that you don’t lead your staff to growth opportunities that aren’t aligned with their current priorities.
- Commitment: Regarding readiness, think about how much time and effort employees can devote to their development. If your employees’ workload is too heavy to allow for weekly training sessions, it makes no sense to sign them up. If the training allows them to fill in a gap within your organization, help them delegate tasks.
- Expectations: There are no guarantees when it comes to business. Budget cuts can result in the loss of new openings, while technological advancements can make entire departments obsolete. Wildcards such as COVID-19 could completely restructure your business. To avoid wasting time and money on opportunities that you may not be able to realize, it is important to carefully frame your professional development goals.
- Responsibilities: Empowering employees to schedule and complete training independently will reduce their managers’ workload. Leaders can and should provide guidance, but employees will benefit by following their learning path at their pace, ideally with onboarding and training software.
Seven Types of employee Development Methods
Here are some of the commonest methods.
Coaching
A mentorship program will usually pair you up with a colleague who is more senior in the organization.
Mentors are volunteers who help new employees develop professionally and personally. Mentors can provide you with valuable advice and wisdom and open doors to exciting new networking opportunities.
Career coaches help you achieve your goals by using techniques that produce results. They are usually paid and can be useful at any career stage.
Workshops
Workshops can be a great way to develop soft skills and learn new concepts. Popular workshops include:
- Meditation and mindfulness workshops
- Lunch and Learn on Financial Wellness
- Emotional intelligence training
- Diversity and inclusion workshops
These events also provide a wonderful opportunity to network with colleagues, share ideas and collaborate.
Stretch Assignments
Employees are challenged to work in an environment outside their comfort zone. These assignments help employees to develop their skills and prepare them for leadership positions.
Stretch assignments are anything from implementing new technologies to leading a group meeting.
Corporate Training
Have you ever participated in an onboarding program or compliance training? How about training in hard and soft skills? You’ve now had a taste for corporate training.
Your employer will provide the formal training you need to perform your job optimally.
Career Planning
When it comes to the development of employees, career planning is a key component. Managers can use a personalized employee development program to map each person’s career.
A manager will ask employees about their career goals during career planning. Together they determine what activities are required to reach those goals.
Corporate Universities
Corporate universities are becoming a popular way to invest in employee training.
According to a recent study, 88% of executives think that corporate education is a crucial part of the business strategy of their organizations. In 2021 they will continue to make investments in this area.
Job Rotation
You can motivate your employees by allowing them to explore new career paths with a job rotation program.
Moving your team from one job to another within the organization exposes them to roles they might be interested in. The team members also gain new skills and have different perspectives.
Benefits of a Career Development Plan for Your Employees
A good development plan is a valuable tool. These plans have a wide range of benefits for your company. They can benefit employees, their teams, and their departments. You can expect your company to:
- Attract more Talent: According to Hays, 24% of employees will leave their current job to advance their careers. Organizations with a clearly defined development plan attract more candidates and retain their employees better.
- Increase Employee Motivation and Engagement: Employees are motivated to improve their professional skills, and when they’re allowed to do this, it makes them happier and more productive. Employee engagement will quickly yield a positive ROI. Motivated employees are more productive and contribute to a healthy workplace culture.
- Increase your Organization’s Productivity by helping your Employees Perform at their Best: When your staff is guided into roles that are appropriate for their skills, they can maximize the performance of your entire company.
- Recognize and Reward top Performers: Employee development plans will highlight your best employees. You’ll more likely recognize those who deserve a shout-out for their excellent work. This is great news since people who feel appreciated at work are four times as engaged as those who do not.
- Equalize the Playing Field: Your employees have different levels of responsibilities and support outside work. Creating equal opportunities is easier when career plans are tailored to each employee. When planning professional development, parents, guardians and caregivers, for instance, should consider their family. Therefore, you should create employee growth plans to support their personal and professional life.
- You can help your Company Achieve its Long-Term Objectives by Aligning your Staff’s Goals with your Organization’s Goals: This will encourage more people to work harder towards achieving the company’s OKRs.
- Create a Transparent Salary Structure: Development plans can show your employees why they are on their current salary and what they can do to achieve a raise.
- Complement the Promotion Process: Employees may use professional development plans to aim for a certain role. This would help you to decide who to promote within your company.
Conclusion
A development plan for your employees can help you improve their effectiveness and knowledge and increase employee satisfaction. When satisfied, your employees will be less likely to look for other jobs.
It is not an easy task to create a plan for employee growth. HR managers must consider many factors, including employees, team leaders and trainers.
Both the employee and employer benefit from investing in the development of their employees. Consider how you can encourage a culture of development and growth for your team and how this can help your employees and your company achieve their fullest potential.
Encourage employees to develop their growth plans and take advantage of informal and formal learning opportunities with others. This will help employees and teams to become stronger and achieve their highest level.
The first step to success for any organization is to understand the importance of a well-structured Employee Development Plan. When the business researches to determine the areas most in need of Employee Development plans, it will be a complete success.
Your company’s success is heavily affected by the satisfaction and dedication of your employees. Employers can create a culture of value and priority for their employees by providing them with resources, training and education, flexible scheduling, performance-based incentives, and other growth opportunities. By investing in your employees, you will not only be able to help them achieve their personal goals but also put your company on the fast track to success.