What Are the Different Types of Professional Development Plans?
Managers base their Employee Advancement Plans on many factors, from the industry to the employees’ specific objectives, skills, and talents. Here are some of the most typical employee advancement methods:
- Professional Organizations and Conferences: Many managers suggest that workers attend professional seminars. Normally hosted by peer organizations, conferences are typically a great networking opportunity. Some workers serve as board members, some as attendees, but conferences offer an excellent chance for employees to learn and grow.
- Continuing Education Classes: Employees with more education on their radar find continuing education. Classes are a source of inspiration and knowledge. Plus, adding to one’s level of expertise often places workers in a better position for a promotion. Some employee development plans even include tuition reimbursement.
- Higher Level Responsibilities: Employee progression plans often emphasize learning about new technology, platforms, and systems. New responsibilities follow these new technologies, and workers gain more experience with higher-caliber duties. Employees who take on more responsibility add to their reputations and showcase their talents.
What Are Professional Development Plan Examples for Employees?
It is helpful to see how professional plans for employee advancement operate in the workplace. Here are a few examples of how these plans help workers progress:
- A worker has been at a tech. Company for three years, and she feels ready to become more of a leader. The employee discusses her ambitions with her direct manager, and her manager is thrilled to hear about the worker’s goals for the future. The manager decides to give the woman more responsibility. She will become the leader of her team, which means more duties, and playing more of a mentorship role with younger workers.
There also exists an opportunity for a bonus at the end of the quarter if things go well. As the work progresses over the next year, she is thankful that her supervisor helped her achieve her goals. In turn, the woman’s supervisor is glad that the employee wants to progress within the company rather than going elsewhere.
- A worker who plays a major role in one of the company’s newest departments begins attending seminars and workshops. He learns how brand-new ideas can help the new department succeed more quickly. Through networking, the employee also sets up new channels between other professionals who offer suggestions and valuable insights.
- A manager taps a rising employee to take on a new responsibility: find common ground between two departments that lack communication. The employee, excited about her chance to shine, hosts an interactive meeting in which both departments must work together on a project. Afterward, everyone, from the heads of both departments to the skilled employee to the manager, learns something new.
What Are Key Elements in a Development Plan?
Every development plan should include variations on three central concepts. While workers’ professional development plans differ in approach and contents, they follow a similar framework that includes:
Workers’ Passions, Skills, and Interests:
All development plans must feature the “human” element: why is the worker interested in professional development? What are they excited and passionate about, where do they find fulfillment, and how do those qualities sync up with their department’s and company’s goals?
Company Needs:
An employee’s development plan typically represents two areas: the individual’s desire for advancement and thirst for knowledge and the company’s need for motivated learners and experts in the field. Therefore, it is important for the plan to ask: what does the company need? What is the business excelling at, and where does it need to improve? In today’s evolving business world, what are three new areas of technology, for example, that the company must incorporate and feature?
Workers’ Talents:
Development plans depend on and relate to the employees at the heart of them. Therefore, it is vital to ask: what are the worker’s strengths and weaknesses? In what area does the employee excel already, and where do they show promise? For example, some workers are not yet leaders, but they show strong evidence that they can be if guided properly.
How can the workers’ talents help their departments and entire companies? Where does the worker see their career heading, and where does the manager see their career going?
Keeping these three categories of questions in mind helps managers construct flexible, clear plans for motivated employees to continue to learn and climb the corporate ladder.
How Does One Write an Employee Development Plan?
At this point, we have covered the reasoning behind creating employee development plans and why these guides are so important for workers and the entire company. Putting pen to paper, however, can be a challenge.
When it is time to focus on creating the Worker Progression Plan, stay focused on the employees and company goals. When managers take the focus off of themselves and place it on the good of the business and the progression of the employee’s career, they create the best development plans.
When managers design plans that help motivate their workers, the results are rewarding for everyone involved. Finally, the manager has an employee they can count on, and the employee often views the manager as a mentor of sorts.
There are four main categories for managers and supervisors regarding employee development. Below, we will elaborate on the four stages of planning, thinking, and writing.
When managers take the time to truly study the company and possibly conduct some research, they get a much better idea of the current state of affairs. At the start of this writing process, company evaluation only works if the manager is honest about the department’s weaknesses and areas that need improvement.
As oneself: where does the company rank locally and in comparison with peers and competitors? Where does the company rank nationally and globally? What does the business need to improve? Rank these areas of improvement in importance, and continue asking questions to create an honest portrait of the business. Once we understand what the company needs, we can better evaluate what the goals of aspiring employees in training should be.
For example, a manager or supervisor may ask:
- Where does the company lack expertise? What departments are weaker than others?
- What is the business’ track record regarding attracting talented candidates?
- What are the company’s needs, and does it have strategic systems to fulfill them?
- Are workers’ benefits in line with the company’s values?
- At what level is worker satisfaction?
- What are the turnover numbers?
- Is the company first, last, or in the middle when it comes to staying on top of a changing industry?
- Are managers actively setting workers up for succession?
All writing begins with brainstorming, and this first category requires managers to think carefully about what the company requires. Employees who seek advancement should do the same. After the brainstorming process ends, do some networking and solicit more information from employees and managers around you. Then, create a list of ideas, and move to the next step.
One cannot overlook the importance of the worker who seeks out career development. The individual who wants to continue to progress their career at the company may be the most important aspect of the entire process.
Managers should focus on one employee at a time and get to know their talents and abilities. When a supervisor, for example, mentors a rising employee, the situation creates a one-on-one dynamic that can create excellent results.
Managers must establish realistic yet challenging expectations. Managers should explain how important worker development plans are for employees and illustrate to the person that the entire business considers them valuable. Employees do their best work when their managers appreciate and support them but also push them.
At the same time, managers and supervisors are busy, and they must convey to employees that they must take some responsibility for their development. Motivated workers who aspire to greater heights should conduct research, participate in training, and solicit feedback from their superiors.
Additionally, workers should schedule one-on-one meetings with their managers. The purpose of these meetings is, first, so the manager gets to know the worker and understands their skills, goals, talents, passions, and motivations. As managers listen more than speak, they should understand where the employee fits in the company’s future. All employees have different strengths and weaknesses, and managers must deduce how they can best help the company while further developing as individuals.
Below are some prompts for useful questions. Many supervisors also ask employees questions ahead of time, so they may do some preliminary thinking and writing.
- What specific skills do employers need to possess to complete their jobs?
- What is something that the worker accomplished recently and is proud of?
- What does the employee need to complete their best work?
- What would aid the worker in enhancing their performance?
- Are there other positions in the company that the worker is interested in?
- Does the worker have career goals? List three.
- What has the work done on their own to further their career and meet their goals?
- What conditions would help the person improve their career?
- What adversity has the worker faced, and what do they expect to contend with in the future?
Managers and supervisors must understand the importance of asking questions like these and continuing the dialogue. Conversations like these should have an element of freedom to them, and workers should feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Then, employees and managers can work together to draft a plan for advancement by setting mutually agreed-upon goals for the future.
- Evaluate Available Prospects
When managers have a better idea of what motivates their workers and their goals, they can help them reach those greater heights. Many managers bring a list of possible ideas to meetings and help employees match their talents and passions with existing opportunities.
For example, if a worker expresses interest in coaching, an intelligent manager can offer them coaching resources immediately. This way, individuals can quickly ascertain whether they want to coach and contact the appropriate parties.
Below, We Offer Some Popular Ideas For Worker Advancement At The Office:
- Becoming a mentor
- Becoming a coach
- Cross-training
- Rotating job positions and responsibilities
- Assignments that “stretch.”
- Attending corporate university
- Group training strategies
- Shadowing managers and superiors
- Enrichment opportunities, local and national
- Planning for succession
- Becoming a team leader
In Our Increasingly Technological Business World, Opportunities Also Exist Online:
- Videos
- Virtual portals
- Podcasts
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Slideshows
- Databases
- Articles
- Web Classes
- Interactive Quizzes
- Dissertations
- White papers
Other Opportunities Exist As Well, Such As:
- Joining organizations for networking in the industry
- Conferences, presentations, lectures
- Tuition reimbursement
- Alternative industry events
There is no shortage of ideas for workers and managers who want to help each other progress. The top supervisors constantly revise and add to their lists of opportunities. They understand the value of offering striving employees options that motivate and excite them.
One word of caution for managers when making an employee development plan is to be careful not to make any guarantees to workers. Every situation is different, and even if a strategy worked in the past, it is foolish to promise an employee that “soon, they will be an executive.” Managers should behave much more prudently and focus on providing workers with the means to succeed. What the employee does with the right tools is up to them.
The purpose of an employee development plan is not to tell workers what to do or make false promises. Instead, development plans should provide individuals with the information, resources, and tools to make the right decisions about their corporate goals. When managers allow workers to follow their passions, they typically find a way to advance their careers and continue to learn on their terms.
Just because the manager and employee sign off on a new training plan does not mean that either party cannot request to make changes. Development plans are meant to be revised and amended as the worker learns more about their personal goals and follows a new path.
However, it is equally important for the employee and the manager to give the new plan a chance. After all, both parties collaborated on the plan, so why not give it a shot and see what happens? Sometimes, the worker encounters some resistance at the start of the development plan. Nevertheless, workers must push through adversity and do their best to continue to evolve as workers and individuals.
What Should the Worker Do to Inspire Success?
Workers should routinely meet with supervisors to review their progress, ask questions, and seek advice. An employee development without healthy dialogue, employees will not grow, and managers will not be able to mentor them. If the employee wants to change the development plan, for example, they can bring this up at the meeting and work through the new ideas.
Meetings can be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or up to the individual’s preferences. Quick check-ins via email or video also help. All relationships are different, so managers should decide when and how to meet based on the worker’s goals and both people’s schedules and duties.
What Should the Company Do to Help the Employee Succeed?
All situations are unique, but everything the employer and managers do should fulfill two goals:
- Helping the individual succeed
- Helping the company progress
How can managers accomplish this? First, supervisors should stay in contact with employees and follow the plan both parties collaborated on.
Supervisors should also request feedback from employees they work with, so they can continually improve. Overall, managers’ goals should reflect support for the worker, constant dialogue, and revision of the plan if necessary.
Inspire Learning
Fresh, young workers value learning. Even more importantly, this demographic is more open to learning than their older more-established counterparts. Young employees seek out growth, learning, and new knowledge so explicitly that many will quit if their work does not challenge them. This concept should be good news for all HR managers and employers because it means their new workers are enthusiastic and dedicated to improving as individuals. When individual workers continue to evolve, so does the company itself.
- Encourage Collaboration and Sharing of Ideas: Managers must stay open to ideas that originate in unlikely places and with new, inexperienced workers. When workers feel comfortable sharing their opinions, they shed their nervousness, and their ideas improve. The ability to help fix company-wide problems, for example, may inspire some new employees to take on more responsibility.
- Encourage Openness: Many managers and business owners overlook the importance of trust between workers and their managers. Yet, when we examine successful companies, we often see that a culture of trust precedes a culture of success.
Why Are Employee Development Plans Crucial to Company Success?
Amid the competition and fast-paced climate of the corporate world, it is easy for managers and supervisors to focus only on the big picture. Many employers focus only on the company’s financial goals and forget that all businesses rely on individuals.
However, working with rising, motivated workers on their development plans reminds managers how important employees, and employee relationships, are.
For example, Benjamin, who works in accounting, has just been promoted for the first time. However, Benjamin seeks more, and he could use a coach.
Michael just received his first bonus for his help with an important account. Michael works in advertising, but he dreams of moving to the market. Who will help him achieve that dream? Will it be someone at the company, or will Michael leave the business to seek other challenges since no mentor has approached him?
Samantha’s goal is to become a Human Resources Manager, but now she is only an intern. So who will help provide Samantha with guidance?
We can find talented individuals at every US company, and many have excellent ambitions and room to grow. But unfortunately, many workers seek new challenges but never achieve their true potential.
Writing an employee development plan is vital for all managers and supervisors. However, when employers overlook the importance of coaching, training, and mentoring rising workers, they miss a wealth of talent and opportunity.
Nakase Wade: California Business Attorneys
At Nakase Wade, our employer lawyers help businesses in California flourish and grow. We have advised numerous business owners on various issues and love watching our clients succeed and grow their companies. Contact our experienced team today for legal questions and counsel.
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