Disha Gupta
How to Create an Employee Development Plan (+Free Template)
- Published:
- Updated: July 18, 2024
For enterprise learning and development teams, creating an effective employee development plan is a strategic imperative. Employee development plans are a blueprint for upskilling your workforce with the competencies they need to excel and drive organizational success.
With the rise of hybrid work, digital transformation, and ever-changing industry regulations, a well-crafted development plan ensures enterprise agility, productivity, and long-term employee engagement.
However, in enterprise settings, you are planning for more than just a handful of employees; you’re potentially impacting thousands of team members, spread across geographies and functions.
This amplifies the complexity of your L&D strategy, but also increases the potential ROI of effective employee development.
In this guide, we will take you through the step-by-step procedure of creating an effective employee development plan for your organization that will provide real value for your employees’ growth.
What Is an Employee Development Plan?
An employee development plan is a structured framework designed to guide an employee’s growth, skill enhancement, and career progression within an organization. It outlines a set of goals, strategies, and actions aimed at developing an employee’s capabilities, knowledge, and competencies to align with both their individual career aspirations and the organization’s broader objectives.
An effective employee development plan typically involves identifying skill gaps, setting achievable goals, offering relevant training and learning opportunities, providing mentorship or coaching, and evaluating progress regularly. Such plans not only contribute to the employee’s professional growth and job satisfaction but also bolster the organization’s talent pool and overall performance.
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How to Create an Employee Development Plan For Your Organization
Creating an effective employee development plan involves a systematic approach encompassing various stages, from identifying organizational needs to celebrating success.
Whether you are updating your company’s existing professional development plan or building a new one from scratch, you can follow the following best practices and guidelines to create a successful employee development program:
1. Identify organizational needs and goals
Begin by understanding your organization’s overarching goals and objectives. Identify the skills and competencies required to achieve these goals. This could involve discussions with senior management, analyzing market trends, and evaluating the company’s strategic direction.
Next, refer to your organization’s larger objectives to determine which behaviors, skills, and competencies are the most critical for achieving those business goals. By aligning the needs of individual employees and the company itself, L&D teams can design employee development programs that straightforwardly benefit the organization at every level.
2. Assess individual employee needs
High-performing employees drive organizational success, growth, and innovation. The top 5% of high-performing team members drive 26% of all output.
To develop these employees, you must understand the specific development and skill needs of employees. First things first, gather data on current L&D needs from recent assessments and progress reports to identify the specific employee development areas to target with your new and improved L&D programming. This will play a significant role in determining which employee development methods would be most applicable and ensuring that development activities are highly relevant and helpful.
Evaluate the skills and competencies of each employee. Use performance evaluations, self-assessments, and feedback from managers and colleagues to identify areas where development is needed. This step helps to tailor the development plan to individual needs.
3. Set clear and measurable goals
Define each employee’s specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) development objectives. SMART goals provide clarity and direction, making tracking progress and measuring success easier.
Here are a few examples of SMART goals to provide clear objectives for employee development plans:
| I want to improve my communication skills |
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| I want to develop my leadership and managerial skills |
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| I want to expand my technical proficiencies and hard skills |
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| I want to improve my time management |
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4. Choose appropriate training delivery methods
Determine the best employee training methods for delivering training and development activities. These can include face-to-face learning, eLearning, on-the-job training, role-playing, coaching, peer-to-peer learning, blended learning, etc. The choice should align with the employee’s learning style and the skills being developed.
Choosing the best employee development method for your business involves balancing the L&D budget, other available resources, and previously determined training needs.
5. Allocate resources and support
Allocate the necessary resources for the development initiatives. This includes budget, time, access to learning materials, and any required tools. Ensure that employees have the support they need to pursue their development goals.
6. Implement regular check-ins
Schedule regular check-ins between employees and their managers or mentors. These discussions provide opportunities to review progress, discuss challenges, and make any necessary adjustments to the development plan.
7. Conduct regular feedback
Provide ongoing feedback to employees throughout the development process. Acknowledge their achievements and provide constructive guidance. This continuous feedback loop enhances engagement and encourages improvement.
8. Monitor and evaluate
Regularly monitor the employee’s progress toward their development goals. Assess how well they are aligning with the plan, whether they are acquiring the desired skills, and if there’s any need for modification.
To ensure maximum efficacy, L&D teams should regularly incorporate data analytics and feedback opportunities into employee development programs.
Using feedback and performance data to continually refine and improve the program makes it possible to keep employee development aligned with individual and organizational needs as the company and its workforce evolve.
9. Celebrate success
Recognize and celebrate the milestones and achievements reached by employees. This fosters a positive learning culture and motivates employees to continue pursuing their development objectives.
10. Adjust and refine
Employee development plans should remain flexible. If an employee’s career goals or organizational needs change, be prepared to adjust the plan accordingly. Regularly reassess the effectiveness of the plan and make refinements as needed.
Employee Development Plan Template
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Benefits of Building an Employee Development Plan
While effective employee development will have contextual benefits depending on your industry, company, business unit, etc., there are also common benefits that come as a result of investing in continuous L&D for your employees, including:
1. Discover new talents and upskill opportunities
When you hire new employees, you do not immediately discover their talents and weaknesses. Employee development plans help engage team members during new employee training and enable managers to understand them better by closely observing their potential. This also allows managers to identify employee development areas and discover skills new hires lack, allowing them to set up upskill training in order to help them do better in the future.
2. Improved skills and competencies
Professional development and workplace training initiatives empower employees with the opportunities to grow the skills and competencies they need to succeed in their current role, meet the evolving demands of the workforce based on trends and new technologies, and prepare them to be a future leader.
Employee development programming enables team members to continually expand their skillset, makes them attractive in the open talent market, and prepares them to take on new responsibilities and move into new roles.
While this improvement directly leads to more efficiency and productive team members, it also protects organizations with future leaders that have detailed company and product knowledge that outside hires will struggle to obtain. It also shields companies from the risks associated with falling behind on current industry trends and cutting-edge technologies, as they will have already prepared their employees with the training to take advantage of these new areas of opportunity.
3. Increased employee satisfaction and engagement
Engaged employees are always more productive and motivated to do their jobs well. You can boost employee engagement in your team by offering professional development courses and materials.
Regular learning and development initiatives create a culture of engagement, make individuals feel valued and invested in their work, prevent workplace fatigue, and keep employees productive.
Team members become more satisfied with their work when they feel valued by their employers. By designing employee experiences with relevant and worthwhile development opportunities, L&D teams can demonstrate their commitment to team member success, improve company-wide engagement, and showcase to individual employees that they’re worth investing in.
As employees grow professionally and participate in employee development activities, they become more confident in their abilities and better able to accomplish their goals and succeed in their roles.
4. Increase productivity and satisfaction
Providing learning and development opportunities for your employees make them feel supported, inspired, and satisfied with their role in the company. This in turn increases their confidence, boosts productivity at work, and allows them to do their jobs more efficiently.
5. Attract and retain talent
According to LinkedIn, 94% of employees would stay with you longer if you invest in learning and development opportunities. To attract new talent and satisfy your current employees, you must show them that your company values its workforce and invests in their development.
A commitment to employee development also contributes to a work environment that encourages employees to further their careers by growing within a company committed to their success rather than searching for positions elsewhere.
By reducing employee turnover, resources dedicated to team member development go much further to keep organizations competitive by strengthening the workforce across skill sets and business units.
6. Drives innovation and accelerates problem-solving
By helping employees develop beyond simple proficiency, employees become confident in their ability to adapt to change and are more comfortable taking risks and solving challenges in innovative ways. Employees become more competitive and profitable when organizational leaders foster work environments that fuel innovation.
7. Talent pipeline and succession planning
Investing in professional development not only helps retain quality employees but attracts new, ambitious ones to apply. A culture of continuous learning is a benefit that workers at all levels seek out, which keeps talent pipelines healthy and employees ready to fill vacancies as they arise.
HR and hiring teams can use their robust employee development programs to attract new, high-performing talent in a job-hiring market that is the most competitive in history.
It also protects companies in the event of unexpected change, employee attrition, churn, or turnover – with highly talented, prospective employees awaiting their names to be called. This succession planning acts as an insurance policy so that company leaders can feel confident in the event of untimely employee departure.
Most Common Employee Development Challenges
As L&D teams create space and opportunities for employee development, certain challenges commonly arise:
1. Resistance to change
Organizational change is challenging and overwhelming for your workforce. Although the employee development plans are built for your employees’ own benefit, they still might not get on board with it if they’re not confident in their own abilities to adapt to it. When people feel threatened by their own shortcomings (real or imagined), they protect themselves from failure by resisting the change.
To avoid change resistance, you need to show the value of the development plan to your workforce. Educate your employees on how the new changes and developments will make their lives better.
2. Engaging learners
It’s a huge challenge for L&D teams to get learners to attend, actively participate, and follow the employee development plan because some employees lack engagement on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral levels. The root cause of this problem is that employees might find some programs unnecessary and irrelevant or the training content might not be engaging or interactive enough to hold the learner’s attention.
L&D teams need to find increasingly creative ways to address the paradox of employees who want to learn, but struggle to keep themselves motivated and engaged in the training and development process.
3. Hectic employee schedules
When work, family life, politics, and a slew of other demands are draining employees’ energy, development training sometimes adds too much to their stress, which makes them resist development training. Traditional employee training methods such as instructor-led classroom training demands a lot of time from an employee’s already hectic schedule, which most of them are not willing to invest.
The solution here is to embed the development training within your employees’ daily schedules via self-paced learning. Self-paced learning enables employees to access learning materials and go through training at their convenience and at a speed that works best for them.
Whatfix enables employees to learn in the flow of work with in-app guided experiences and on-demand performance support. Its self-paced and interactive on-the-job training solution augments training by helping employees learn while doing within the business application.
4. Balancing individual and organizational needs
It can be difficult to strike a balance between the needs of employee learners with larger organizational goals. Emphasizing training opportunities related to areas where these aspects overlap and still providing additional ones that contribute to more specific needs can be a good place to start.
By committing to making employee development an ongoing process, L&D teams can use data and feedback related to employee and company-wide performance to adjust this balance as necessary.
5. Ensuring equal access to development opportunities
Part of developing a learning environment that benefits all employees is the expectation that all employees will be able to actively participate. This can be difficult when employees in different roles have different levels of availability or when most of the office works remotely.
Choose employee development methods that provide the flexibility needed by employees across the organization and provide safe opportunities for employees to speak up if they feel they are missing out.
6. Emerging technologies and the need for reskilling and upskilling
When work, family life, politics, and a slew of other demands are draining employees’ energy, development training sometimes adds too much to their stress, which makes them resist development training. Traditional employee training methods such as instructor-led classroom training demands a lot of time from an employee’s already hectic schedule, which most of them are not willing to invest.
The solution here is to embed the development training within your employees’ daily schedule via self-paced learning. Self-paced learning enables employees to access learning materials and go through training at their convenient time and at a speed that works best for them.
Whatfix enables self-paced learning for your employees via interactive walkthroughs and video training. Whatfix’s self-paced and interactive on-the-job training solution augments training by helping employees in learning while doing, within the business application.
CASE STUDY
How REG reduced time-to-proficiency of its CRM and ERP by 50%
REG’s L&D and IT team faced challenges training employees to its highly customized Salesforce CRM and JD Edwards ERP instances. New employees took upwards of six months to become proficient with the system, leading to frequent account errors and incorrect process usage. Existing users were failing to adapt to new processes and adopt new features.
Whatfix enabled REG to standardize its end-user training via contextual in-app guidance in the flow of work. With Whatfix, REG reduced its time-to-proficiency for its CRM and ERP by 50%, equally a 3-month faster onboarding time for new employees. It also reduced daily IT support tickets by 600% by deflecting issues with in-app support.
“Whatfix reimagines our training. It supports in-app guidance across almost any interface and platform. And it’s so easy to update materials, we can at last keep pace with the system changes. Looking back, Whatfix was one of the best decisions we have made.”
Abby Essings
Sr. Operations Managers at REG
Employee Development Plan Examples
1. Leadership development
Employee: John Doe, Senior Software Engineer
Current Skill Assessment: John is technically highly skilled but lacks experience leading and guiding junior team members.
Development Goals:
- Develop Mentorship Skills – Participate in mentoring junior engineers to foster their growth and development.
- Enhance Decision-Making – Attend leadership workshops focused on effective decision-making.
- Project Management Proficiency – Enroll in project management training to gain skills in leading projects.
Development Activities and Timeline:
- Mentor junior engineer for a project (3 months) – Month 1-4
- Attend leadership workshop (2 days) – Month 5
- Enroll in project management training (8 weeks) – Month 6-7
Resources and Support:
- Regular check-ins with a mentor to discuss mentoring experiences
- Budget for leadership workshop and project management training
- Access to online resources and training materials
Evaluation:
- Feedback from mentee on mentorship experience
- Application of decision-making techniques in team discussions
- Successful completion of projects with improved project management skills
2. Technical Skill Development Plan
Employee: Jane Bryant, Data Analyst
Current Skill Assessment: Y is proficient in basic data analysis techniques but lacks expertise in advanced data modeling.
Development Goals:
- Master advanced data modeling – Complete an online course on advanced data modeling techniques.
- Apply learning to real projects – Identify opportunities to apply advanced modeling to current projects.
- Share knowledge – Present a workshop to the team on new data modeling approaches.
Development Activities and Timeline:
- Complete online data modeling course (12 weeks) – Month 1-3
- Apply advanced modeling to a live project (2 months) – Month 4-5
- Present data modeling workshop to team (1 day) – Month 6
Resources and Support:
- Budget for online course enrollment
- Access to relevant datasets for practical application
- Support from a technical mentor for guidance
Evaluation:
- Assessment of the quality and complexity of data models developed
- Feedback from team members on the effectiveness of the workshop
- Successful implementation of advanced modeling techniques in live projects
Enable employee development in the flow of work with in-app guided training and real-time support with Whatfix
A well-trained, dynamic, and motivated workforce is crucial to any organization. The best way to raise employees to such standards is to invest in their continuous development. This will foster an engaged workforce that is proven to be productive, profitable, and motivated.
Invest in digital adoption platforms like Whatfix to maximize the ROI of your employee development programs. Using DAPs as training software empowers employees to upskill themselves on the latest tools, applications, or processes without disrupting their workflow or productivity.
These platforms offer step-by-step tutorials, real-time guidance, and personalized assistance to provide your employees an interactive, user-friendly learning experience.
L&D teams can measure training effectiveness using Whatfix Guidance Analytics to understand how employees engage with in-app content and use help resources. Use this data to make informed decisions on improving your “learn by doing” experiences, improve task completion rates, and support team members better.
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