4 Simple Steps for Better Employee Development Plans

You need an individualized approach for the development of your employees – and quickly. According to a study by the American Psychological Association (APA), 23% of American workers are dissatisfied with their development opportunities at work.

Although the majority of respondents (71%) had no intention of changing jobs, they also reported frequently experiencing negative feelings in the workplace, ranging from lack of motivation and exhaustion to decreased productivity.

In contrast, a trusted leader and development opportunities rank at the top of the list of reasons (positions 5 and 6) why employees remain loyal to their jobs.

Read on to get tips on how to fully unlock your employees' potential and use effective employee development plans to advance your entire company.

Key Insights for Employee Development Plans

An employee development plan, also called a growth plan, is a process that helps individuals improve their current skills and acquire knowledge and abilities for new tasks and responsibilities within the company.

Here are the three key elements that every employee development plan should include, along with questions to consider when creating the plan:

1. Company Needs:

• What does your company require?
• What are its strengths and weaknesses?
• What skills and technologies does it need to stay competitive?

2.   Employee Competence:

• What are the employee's strengths?
• How can he/she use his/her skills to achieve better results for the team and the company?
• How can these results benefit his/her career and help him/her grow?

3.   Employee Interests:

• What is the employee passionate about?
• What truly brings him/her joy and fulfillment?
• How can these passions be better aligned with his/her strengths and the needs of the company?

Most importantly, you should not take a one-size-fits-all approach and use the same ideas for employee development for everyone in the company. Everyone has unique strengths and weaknesses that need to be nurtured. The key is to tailor your approach individually.

The most important benefits of an employee development plan

Investing in a good employee development plan pays off for your company and your employees in many ways:-

• You attract talented applicants.
• You increase employee engagement and motivation.
• You improve employee performance.
• You increase your company's efficiency and profitability.
• You develop employees with potential.
• You improve employee retention and satisfaction.
• You support your company in future planning.

These key benefits should be considered and communicated when creating your employee development plan and seeking support from managers and decision-makers.

4 Examples of Innovative Goals Within Employee Development Plans

• Leadership Training
  An employee has been with the company for several years and wants to further develop their leadership skills. After consulting with their direct supervisor to find suitable opportunities, the employee takes on a larger share of the mentoring and coaching responsibilities within the team.
  
  The direct supervisor provides support and advice on mentoring to the employee during this time.
• Expanded Duties and Responsibilities
  An employee with excellent verbal and written communication skills takes on a more demanding project aimed at improving collaboration between departments. This project promotes the employee's professional development while also contributing to enhanced collaboration across the company.
  
  As part of the project, the employee identifies the teams' challenges and tests various strategies to optimize collaboration. They can learn new technologies, systems, and processes, support their implementation, and train team members.
• Professional Associations and Seminars
  An employee of a still relatively young department in your company attends local conferences and workshops to network and learn new strategies and ideas for further developing the department.
  
  This employee can also exchange ideas with other professionals who provide insights into successfully building teams and achieving meaningful results. Through these events, the employee can take on a more active role within the company and the industry.
• Professional Certifications  
  An employee with a basic training in payroll (Fundamental Payroll Certification, FPC) decides, after three years in your payroll department, to pursue the Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) certification. The employee's goal is to get a promotion, make a greater contribution to the company's success, and earn a higher salary.  
  
  To actively support this employee's professional development, the company could cover the costs of the certification course and the exam.

How to Create a Professional Employee Development Plan

Step 1: Needs Analysis

Analyze the current state of your company, the goals, opportunities, and challenges of your employee development plan, as well as the necessary actions to strengthen your workforce in order to achieve your objectives.

To help you get started, here are some questions you can ask yourself about your company:

• Do we have knowledge or skills gaps?
• Can we attract the talent we need?
• Are our training and development programs aligned with our strategic needs?
• Do our benefits match the priorities of our employees?
• How do we measure and improve employee satisfaction?
• Are we doing enough to reduce turnover?
• Are we keeping up with changes in our industry?
• Are we preparing our employees for succession planning?

Think carefully about such questions and ask leaders and trusted colleagues for their suggestions. Create as detailed a list as possible with answers and priorities.

Use data whenever possible to answer these questions. From turnover rates to the number of employees currently participating in training programs—you can establish a baseline and analyze the impact of changes in your personnel development plans on the company.

Step 2: Focus on the Individual

Even though your development plan affects your entire company, it works best when it helps each individual. Group work is out of place here. The benefits of individual, personal collaboration lead to outstanding results.

Start by setting clear expectations for leaders and employees. Explain that they will work together to create individual development plans for the employees' career growth.

Then clarify the responsibilities. Employees should take responsibility for their own career development by, for example, researching available resources and following their self-learning plan. Leaders should act as supporters, providing guidance, resources, and feedback.

Finally, encourage regular conversations focused on professional development. Each employee should meet in a one-on-one discussion with their manager to talk about career achievements, skills, interests, and needs. The manager should be prepared to listen more than speak during this first meeting. Remember: listening is better than talking.

Here are some key questions to help managers get started in the conversation:

• What skills are required for your role?  
• Tell me about an achievement in your current position that you are particularly proud of.  
• Do you have the necessary qualifications to perform at your best?  
• What would help you improve your performance?  
• Are there other positions in our company that interest you?  
• What are your career goals?  
• What steps have you taken so far to advance your career?  
• What would help you further advance your career?  
• What obstacles do you encounter in your professional development plans?

A few more tips: Emphasize how important it is to ask supervisors questions so that they can better understand the employee's situation. To get meaningful answers, supervisors should inform employees in advance about which questions will be asked.

Employees should also work together with their supervisors to set concrete, measurable goals using appropriate resources (such as those mentioned below). Also make it clear to them that the development plan is not based on misconduct. This helps to avoid misunderstandings.

Step 3: Provide the Right Opportunities

Once you know the needs and desires of your employees, there are many ways to support them in achieving their goals within the framework of the personnel development plan. Ideally, the manager has a list of resources ready that can be offered during the conversation. This way, the manager and the employees can work on the plan together immediately, without needing to schedule another meeting.

Here are some popular ideas and resources for personnel development:

At the workplace:

• Coaching and mentoring
• Lateral entry, job rotation, and job-shadowing
• Challenging tasks
• Corporate training
• Succession planning
• Group training (when multiple employees share a common need)

Online:

• Videos
• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Courses
• E-Books

Other offerings:

• Memberships in industry associations with networking and training opportunities
• Conferences, seminars, and other industry events
• Coverage of training costs

Some training and personal development measures may not be practical due to cost, time, or other reasons. Leaders should find out in advance which offerings they can provide and which they cannot. Many online resources are low-cost or free, but pay attention to their quality.

Step 4: Track Results and Optimize Strategy

After training leaders in employee development, assess the success of their efforts with individual employees and the impact of the development plans on your entire organization.

Leaders and Individual Employees

Leaders should meet regularly with each employee to discuss the progress of the development plan, acknowledge achievements, and talk about the next steps.

• Were there unexpected obstacles or difficulties?  
• How can these be overcome?  
• Do new opportunities arise?  
• Have the person's needs, career goals, or personal circumstances changed?  

These employee development plans should not be static. They should rather be dynamic documents that are continuously adapted and improved by managers to best support employees. Flexibility is important in order to be able to adjust to changing circumstances if needed.  

Furthermore, the frequency of formal meetings between manager and employee is less important than open communication. This allows for timely adjustments. Short, informal conversations between meetings are helpful. It is an ongoing process, not a one-time matter.

Nevertheless, it is advisable to set a minimum number of meetings per year to avoid the excuse, 'Everything is going well, we don't need a meeting.'

Company-wide: Consider what is practical for the size, structure, and situation of your company.

Measure individual results, assess overall progress, examine new development opportunities and obstacles for your employees, and adjust goals and strategies to your development philosophy. Repeat this regularly.

Determine who holds overall responsibility for employee development plans.

Small companies can rely on one person who already handles other tasks, likely in human resources. Larger companies can hire a full-time employee for employee development or set up a team.

Each of these approaches can work. The goal is to give those responsible the necessary authority to act, hold them accountable for the results, and give them a strong voice to represent the interests of the company and its employees.

Consider how your company will evaluate and communicate the results.

Your leadership team also needs to understand the big picture. Career development measures should ultimately lead to an optimized work environment with more satisfied and engaged employees.

One of the best ways to find this out is through regular feedback. A short, anonymous email survey can quickly capture the mood across the entire company and highlight what is working well and where there is room for improvement. Make it unmistakably clear to your employees that the survey is anonymous to avoid any suspicion of monitoring.

Effective employee development is not a one-time event but a continuous, individualized process that aligns an employee's passion and competence with the company's strategic needs. By following the four steps—analyzing needs, focusing on the individual through dedicated conversations, providing targeted opportunities, and tracking results—companies can significantly boost retention, performance, and profitability. IceHrm's Performance Management and Training features are the perfect engine for this process. They facilitate the necessary regular one-on-one meetings (Step 2) to discuss career goals, allow managers to document individual development plans (Step 3), and enable the organization to track goal achievement and training progress across the entire company (Step 4). Leveraging IceHrm ensures that development plans are dynamic, measurable, and directly contribute to creating a highly satisfied and skilled workforce prepared for future success.