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Did you know that between April 2021 and April 2022, 41% of employees left their jobs due to a lack of career development?
That’s a lot of talent walking out the door, and it’s no wonder why companies are making employee development a priority.
However, besides reducing employee turnover, employee development brings many benefits to companies, such as increased productivity, higher employee engagement and enhanced skills.
But how do you create an effective employee development plan to keep your company competitive while increasing employee engagement?
In this article, we’ll precisely explore that. Let’s dive in!
Employee development refers to helping employees improve their skills, knowledge and abilities to enhance their performance and reach their full potential. It involves providing learning opportunities, training programs and other initiatives that enable employees to develop professionally and grow within their roles and careers.
Employee development is crucial for organizations as it supports employee engagement, retention and productivity. When you allow employees to learn and develop their skills, they feel valued and motivated, leading to higher job satisfaction and loyalty toward the organization. In turn, this can reduce turnover rates and improve employee morale.
There are various ways you can facilitate employee development. These include providing on-the-job training, coaching and mentoring, workshops or seminars and supporting employees in pursuing additional education or certifications.
Read this article to learn more about training and development and how to implement it in your organization.
Here are the five key importance of employee development that will lead to your organizational success:
One of the primary benefits of employee development is increased engagement and improved retention rates.
Studies show that 90% of employees won’t quit if they get development opportunities. When employees are given opportunities to learn and grow within their roles, they feel valued and motivated to perform at their best.
This helps reduce turnover costs and maintains institutional knowledge. Furthermore, it will help you create a positive work environment and foster a sense of loyalty and commitment among your workforce.
Employee development programs provide employees with the necessary skills and competencies to excel in their roles. This is one of the best ways to ensure they have the tools and resources needed to meet the evolving demands of their jobs.
Developing a skilled and competent workforce enables your organization to adapt to changing industry trends, stay ahead of competitors and achieve sustainable growth.
A recent survey conducted by TalentLMS shows that 80% of employees believe that proper training and development increase their productivity.
Employees who receive regular development opportunities become more proficient in their roles, leading to improved performance and productivity. As they acquire new knowledge and skills, they become better equipped to handle challenges, make informed decisions and contribute innovative ideas.
Employee development plays a crucial role in succession planning and building a robust talent pipeline. By identifying high-potential employees and providing them with targeted development opportunities, you can groom them for future leadership positions.
So, when a leadership role opens up, you can avoid external hiring and save on recruitment costs. It also boosts employee morale and motivation, as they see a clear path for growth and advancement within the organization.
Here’s a succession planning template that you can use.
Investing in employee development fosters a culture of continuous learning within the organization. When employees perceive their growth and development are valued, they are more likely to engage in ongoing learning and seek new challenges. A learning culture promotes knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and innovation.
It encourages employees to stay updated with industry trends and best practices, which can lead to the development of new products, improved processes and better customer service.
There are many areas of employee development that you can focus on. Ensure your chosen areas help your company grow and stay profitable.
Here are five of the most popular areas for employers to focus on:
Goal-setting is crucial for employees, giving them a clear sense of direction and purpose. Encouraging employees to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART goals) empowers them to take control of their professional development.
To support employees in effective goal-setting, providing them with the necessary tools and resources is crucial. This ensures that their individual goals align with your organization's overall vision and objectives.
If you or your employees find it challenging to achieve goals, it's possible that the goals themselves need to be refined. Setting goals that are too vague or unrealistic can hinder progress and motivation. Recent studies have shown that setting challenging but achievable goals can lead to 90% better outcomes.
Visme provides goal-setting worksheet templates that will help employees set SMART goals. Here’s an example template you can use:
Strong communication skills are fundamental for success in any role. Investing in communication development programs enables employees to convey ideas, information and feedback effectively.
Studies show that 86% of executives and employees cite poor communication as the number one reason for workplace failures. Prioritize enhancing their written and verbal communication skills to help them become better collaborators and problem solvers.
To help your team streamline communication, Visme comes with templates such as training manuals, reports, infographics, communication plans and more. These templates focus specifically on improving communication between team members.
Effective collaboration is crucial for successful teamwork, innovation and organizational growth. Investing in collaboration development initiatives helps employees develop the skills needed to work effectively with others, leveraging diverse perspectives and expertise.
However, since more and more teams are working remotely from across the globe, collaboration is becoming more challenging. Keeping this in mind, Visme comes with collaborative design features that let your team create content together.
These features include live editing, real-time commenting, and seamless file sharing. With Visme's collaborative design tools, team members can collaborate on projects simultaneously, providing instant feedback and making real-time edits. This streamlines the collaboration process, enhances communication and improves productivity.
Watch this video below to learn more about Visme’s collaboration tools.
Efficiently managing time, tasks and resources is essential for employees to thrive in their roles. Support your employees' organizational skills through development programs, empowering them to enhance their planning, prioritization and time management abilities.
Employees can become more organized by providing training and tools for optimizing workflows, leading to increased productivity, reduced stress and improved ability to meet deadlines.
When it comes to staying organized, visual task management can be a great way to stay on top of tasks and projects. This can be as simple as using a wall calendar or planner. Still, many time management apps provide an easy-to-use interface for creating checklists, organizing tasks by category and more.
Visme is one of the best tools that helps you create and manage your visual assets to stay organized. It offers employee schedule templates, collaboration features, project plans, Gantt charts, roadmaps, flowcharts and more.
If you want to maximize the performance of your employees, look for ways to boost their productivity. Productivity development initiatives will give employees the techniques and strategies to optimize their output.
Here are some ideas to boost your employee productivity:
Additionally, here are eight expert-level time management strategies that you can use to boost your productivity.
There are different ways to implement employee development in your organization.
However, not all methods are equally effective for every organization.
Here are the top 5 employee development methods you must learn about and implement accordingly.
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Training programs are a standard method for developing employees' skills and knowledge to excel in their roles. These programs can range from internal workshops to external seminars and conferences.
They can cover technical skills, such as software proficiency or industry-specific knowledge, as well as soft skills, like communication and leadership. Whatever the training mode, it should be specific to your employee's needs and tasks.
For example, suppose your organization is implementing a new software system to streamline operations. In this case, you can train employees to use the software and navigate the features effectively.
Use Visme’s training manual templates to create professional and comprehensive training manuals that effectively convey information to employees. You’ll find templates for almost every role in your organization, such as SEO, community manager, cashier, data entry operator, product manager and more.
These templates enable you to deliver engaging and informative content to employees, enhancing the effectiveness of training programs.
Pairing employees with experienced professionals is a powerful method for employee development. And mentoring is the best way to do this. Mentors offer guidance, support and feedback to mentees, helping them navigate their career paths and overcome challenges.
Through mentoring relationships, employees gain valuable insights, expand their professional networks, and develop the skills and confidence needed for career growth.
Organizations that implement mentoring programs create a learning culture and foster strong employee bonds. This further contributes to the overall benefits of employee development within the company.
Interactive workshops provide hands-on learning experiences and foster collaboration among employees. These sessions focus on specific skills or topics relevant to the organization's goals. Workshops can cover many areas, such as problem-solving, team building or innovative thinking.
Encourage your employees to participate in workshops to gain practical skills, share knowledge and cultivate a continuous improvement mindset.
Visme offers a diverse selection of brainstorming templates that you can during interactive workshops. With a wide range of templates, including problem-solving, team-building and innovative thinking, employees can collaboratively explore ideas and improve their skills.
Choose your favorite template and customize it to fit your organization, employee training goals and needs. Here's an example:
Provide your employees with real-time learning opportunities, practical skills and the chance to apply them immediately with on-the-job training. This is basically learning while doing, and it’s done right after the training.
The primary focus of on-the-job training is to provide employees with the resources to learn while at work. This approach is particularly beneficial for companies that lack the time to individually train each employee, especially when the required skills are not highly advanced.
This method involves assessing an employee’s job performance and providing feedback. These reviews provide valuable feedback that enables individuals to identify development opportunities, refine their skills and align their performance with business objectives.
Visme can help you conduct and manage performance reviews for your organization. With Visme, you can customize branded performance review templates using the drag-and-drop editor.
Discover 13 best practices and tools to get you started with performance reviews for your team.
Creating an employee development plan is a strategic process that helps identify and address skill gaps while aligning with the goals of both the employees and the company.
Hear it from one of our customers why Visme is the best tool to create training and development content.
"I like it because it is easy to use and I can create almost everything I want. I use it to create training modules and standard operating procedures for employees in the AG business."
Wolfgang H.| Adjunct Professor
Now, let’s explore the steps to create an effective employee development plan:
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Conduct a thorough assessment of your employee's current skills and competencies. Identify areas where there are gaps or opportunities for improvement. This analysis will provide a foundation for designing the employee development plan.
For example, if the analysis reveals many employees with strong technical skills but few with management experience, a training program focused on leadership skills might be appropriate.
You can do this by asking your employees to fill out employee evaluation forms. Here's a template for you to analyze your employee performance.
Read our comprehensive article to learn what to include in your employee evaluation form for a smother evaluation.
Once you've identified the development areas of your employees, the next step is to align their individual goals with the overarching objectives of your organization.
Discuss their interests, strengths and areas for growth. Align these with the company's strategic objectives to ensure the development plan supports individual and organizational goals.
For example, suppose your company has the initiative to increase process efficiency, and you have an employee interested in becoming a process improvement specialist. In that case, this is an excellent opportunity for development.
Utilize an employee development plan template to organize and structure the plan effectively. Templates provide a framework that includes key sections such as employee information, development goals, action steps, timelines and evaluation methods.
This will ensure that you are following a proven method to create your employee development, making the process much more efficient.
Visme offers customizable templates that can assist in creating visually appealing and professional-looking plans.
Here’s one of the employee development plan examples template you customize to fit your organizational needs.
Encourage active participation and involvement from the employees themselves. Seek their input and ideas regarding their development needs and goals. This collaborative approach increases employee engagement and ownership of the plan. Conduct regular discussions to gather feedback, address concerns and refine the development plan as necessary.
As you involve your teams and employees in the employee development process, providing them with tools that facilitate collaboration and brainstorming is important, especially in remote work settings.
Use Visme’s online whiteboard tool for collaborating and brainstorming, especially if your teams work remotely. With interactive features like sticky notes and shapes, teams can visually map out their thoughts and concepts, enhancing clarity and communication.
Using the insights gained from the skills gap analysis, employee aspirations and company goals, create a tailored employee development plan. Clearly outline the specific skills or areas for improvement, set achievable goals and determine the necessary actions and resources.
Incorporate a mix of corporate training programs, workshops, mentorship and other development methods as required. Assign responsibilities to the employee, their manager and any relevant support personnel.
Regularly review and update the plan to ensure its relevance and effectiveness. Monitor progress, provide ongoing feedback and support, and track the development of each employee.
With Visme's analytics feature, gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of the employee development plan. Analyze training program completion rates, workshop participation and skill improvement data.
Visualize progress through intuitive data visualization tools such as progress bars, radial gauges, charts and graphs. Assess your employee development plan to identify strengths and areas for improvement. Utilize the data to make necessary adjustments and enhance the plan effectively.
Now that you understand how to make an employee development plan, we are providing you with some templates to make the process easier. You can customize these templates using Visme's simple drag-and-drop editor to match your specific business goals.
The general employee development plan is a comprehensive template designed to support overall employee growth. It features sections for employee profile, skills assessment, training plan and evaluation.
The employee profile section allows for personalization, while the skills assessment helps identify areas for improvement. The training plan and evaluation sections ensure a structured approach to development. This template promotes a well-rounded employee development process.
The template includes a Flipbook effect that provides an enjoyable and interactive experience. It allows you to flip through the document's pages as if you were holding a physical copy in your hands. As you navigate through the pages, each flip creates a smooth animation, giving you a realistic sensation of turning pages and enhancing your immersion in the content.
Creating an employee development plan around your business goals is a great way to ensure that employees are aligned with your company and understand their role in achieving those goals.
This employee development plan template makes it easy for you to do that. It provides a page to state your goals clearly and then an action plan page to outline the steps needed to turn those goals into reality.
Also, the template includes separate pages for short-term and long-term goals, allowing for focused planning.
Ensure that you have an effective system in place for onboarding new hires with this new employee development plan. Assess your staff and track their progress using interactive progress bars, making it easy to identify areas that require attention.
Additionally, you can share these results with employees and managers, ensuring everyone is informed about the organization's current state.
Visme includes a time-saving feature called dynamic fields. With this feature, you can create a field once and then apply it to multiple pages. Any changes made to the template will automatically update all pages where these fields are used.
This feature is particularly useful when you must include the same information in various documents. Watch the video below to learn more about this amazing feature.
Are you struggling to create an employee development plan for leadership roles? It's not uncommon to experience this challenge, especially if you haven't done this before.
However, creating an employee development plan for leadership roles is crucial because it plays an essential role in creating a high-performing organization.
This leadership-based employee development plan template is the perfect one to start with. Take advantage of the high-quality content, layout and design elements.
Easily personalize attractive design components like icons, illustrations, high-resolution images, and shapes to enhance your plan's visual appeal and clarity.
If you have a specific design element, try Visme's AI image generator. It creates images, icons, illustrations, and hand drawings according to your preferences, saving you time and effort in finding the perfect visuals for your plan.
Simply tell the tool what you want, select your desired output, and it will generate it in seconds.
A skill-based employee development plan is a framework or strategy designed to enhance and improve specific skills of an employee.
Rather than focusing on overall professional growth, the plan targets specific areas where your employees can develop and acquire new skills relevant to their role and career progression.
Use this template to create development plans for the roles like a project manager, an accountant, a sales executive, or any other skilled position within your business.
Visme features a powerful AI writer that can help you generate content ideas and create engaging, high-quality content in seconds.
Utilize the AI writer to generate relevant content ideas for each role, ensuring engaging and high-quality materials for workshops and training sessions. This streamlines the process, enabling effective skill enhancement for employees.
And that's it! This article should address all your questions about creating an employee development plan. With a helpful guide and the five useful templates, you're ready to develop the plan.
However, creating an employee development plan is just the beginning. To provide the best growth opportunities for your employees, you need to develop various other learning materials.
Visme is the ultimate solution for all your employee training and development content creation needs. You can create everything necessary to train your employees, including presentations, training manuals, employee handbooks and workbooks.
And the best part? You can easily export all the training materials in SCORM and xAPI formats to integrate them into your learning management system.
Sign up for Visme’s training and development templates and tools and take your employee development to the next level.
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