How to Make Hierarchy Chart: Best Tools & Templates
Creating effective employee development plans is a rewarding yet incredibly daunting task for HR teams. Without a clear roadmap, it can feel like you're driving blind and not making any real progress toward developing your top employees.
Companies that get it right can steer their employees toward success and make the most of their talent. The best part? Organizations that chart a clear course for talent development report a 218% higher income per employee and a 24 percent higher profit margin than those that do not.
So where do you start? How do you create an effective employee development plan that unlocks the true potential of your employees?
In this article, we'll provide five research-backed employee development plan templates to guide your team to success.
These templates offer a structured framework for identifying goals, creating action plans, and measuring progress. Start leading your team to success today with our pre-made templates!
An employee development plan is a structured approach to helping employees grow and achieve their career goals in an organization. The document outlines the specific areas where an employee needs to improve, the goals they need to accomplish, and the steps they need to take to achieve them.
An employee development plan is similar to a career development plan but slightly different in that it focuses on enhancing the skills and knowledge of an employee to boost their performance in their current role.
A career development plan, on the other hand, is designed to help employees achieve their long-term career goals, even outside of their current role.
Think of an employee development plan as a GPS that guides employees toward their career destination. Without it, employees could veer off track, take the wrong turn and end up lost.
The plan typically includes specific skills or competencies that an employee needs to develop or improve upon, such as leadership, communication or technical skills. It also includes actionable steps that the employee can take to get better in these areas, such as attending training sessions or seeking mentorship.
Here's an example of an employee development plan
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As the job market becomes more competitive, organizations are realizing the importance of investing in the growth and development of their employees.
Let’s dive into the specific benefits of employee development plans.
According to a survey by LinkedIn, 94% of employees would stay with a company longer if it invested in their career development. When employees see that their employer is invested in their growth and development, they are more likely to remain with the company long-term.
Experience has shown that employee development plans help employees acquire new skills and knowledge that ensure better performance in their current roles. When employees feel more confident in their job, they tend to produce quality work and contribute more to the organization.
An employee development plan also effectively elevates employee engagement. When employees are given opportunities to learn and grow, they feel more engaged and motivated to perform well.
Employee development plans can also be useful for organizations trying to save costs in the long run. By investing in the growth and development of their employees, organizations can reduce turnover costs, avoid the expenses of hiring and training new employees and enhance overall productivity.
An effective employee development plan should provide a distinct roadmap for an employee's growth and development, aligning their skills and knowledge with the organization's objectives.
But what should you include?
The development plan should establish SMART goals that challenge the employee to grow in their role and contribute to the organization's success. The employee's job responsibilities and the organization's overall objectives should be tied to these goals.
An example of a SMART goal in an employee development plan could be: to increase the project completion rate by 25% within one year by developing and implementing a project management training program, streamlining communication channels, and improving task prioritization.
Here’s what makes this goal SMART.
Map out the SMART goals for employee development using this worksheet below.
An employee development plan should always begin with an overview of the employee in question. This should include a detailed analysis of their current role, responsibilities and performance, as well as their personal and professional goals.
Once the goals have been established and we know who the employee is, it’s time for the action plan. The plan should outline how the employee will acquire the skills and knowledge needed to achieve them.
This could include training sessions, attending conferences or workshops and many other things. It's important to ensure that the employee has access to the necessary resources and support to help them succeed in their development.
Once the goals are established, the action plan should outline how the employee will acquire the necessary skills and knowledge. This should include timelines, deadlines and location preferences.
Also specifying learning formats and location- Is it going to online, offline, or hybrid formats? This allows for effective planning and resource allocation.
Evaluation and assessment is a vital aspect of an employee development plan, as it allows individuals to pause and assess their progress towards their goals.
Regular check-ins with the employee and their supervisor or performance reviews can achieve this. This is a place for objective measurement of the employee’s performance and efforts towards their goals.
With the right help, creating an employee development plan doesn’t have to be hard. Visme makes the process super seamless.
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We have created various employee development plan templates to help you effectively support and develop your team. Here are some of our favorites.
The General Employee Development Plan template is an ideal starting point for organizations to create an effective employee development plan. The template is organized into five key sections, beginning with objectives and ending with employee evaluation. These sections include a skills assessment, goals, action plan and employee evaluation.
The template features a simple, minimalist design with a black, white, pink and yellow color combination. The use of tables and lists make it easy to read and understand, while the color scheme draws attention to the most important elements of the plan.
Use the dynamic fields feature to auto populate custom information throughout the document. Customize the template to fit the organization's and its employees' specific requirements.
The Performance Employee Development Plan template is a comprehensive option designed to drive performance and achieve specific outcomes within an organization. This template is structured into five main sections, starting with goals and concluding with long-term objectives. It includes sections for employee overview, action plan and more.
The template follows an industrial design style, offering a professional and clean appearance. It adopts an uncluttered layout to highlight essential information such as the employee overview, action plan and goals.
If you want to make it less industrial, you could use Visme's Icon Finder to incorporate some fun and visually appealing icons into the template. This feature allows users to select from a wide range of icons to enhance the design and engage the audience while maintaining the template's overall simplicity and focus on goals and objectives.
The New Employee Development Plan template is specifically designed to provide comprehensive support and guidance to new employees, setting them up for long-term success within the organization. This template is structured into four main sections, starting with an overview and concluding with short and long-term goals.
Use Visme's brand wizard to easily customize the template to match your company's unique brand style. This allows your organizations to incorporate their branding elements seamlessly, creating a cohesive and personalized look and feel for the template.
The Leadership-Based Employee Development Plan template serves as a customizable tool for organizations focused on nurturing and developing their future leaders. This template consists of five main sections: objectives, candidate profile, skills assessment, training roadmap and evaluation.
The template features a clean and modern green color scheme, but it can be effortlessly customized using Visme's editor to align with any company's branding and style. Additionally, the template can be enhanced with AI-generated images from Visme, allowing for visually captivating and engaging designs that resonate with the target audience.
Visme's AI-generated images feature provides an excellent opportunity to enhance the template. These images can be strategically placed throughout the template to complement and reinforce key points, elevating the overall design quality and effectiveness of the plan.
The Skill-Based Employee Development Plan template is a simple resource designed to enhance employees' skills in specific areas, providing a structured approach for targeted skill development. Each section in the template is strategically crafted to offer a complete overview of the employee's skill development journey.
The template is designed to provide a thorough overview rather than a skimmable format, allowing for a deep dive into the employee's skills and training needs. The inclusion of an employee profile section is particularly valuable, as it enables companies to gain insights into individual strengths and weaknesses within specific skill areas.
Visme's collaboration tools are invaluable for working together on this plan with the employee. These collaboration tools facilitate seamless and effective collaboration, enabling both the employee and the employer to provide their inputs, exchange feedback and make necessary adjustments within the template.
An effective employee development plan is only as successful as its execution. Here’s what you can do before, during and after implementing an employee development plan to ensure it will be a success.
Before executing an employee development plan, it's important to set clear expectations with the employee. This may involve discussing the goals and objectives of the plan, outlining the learning opportunities that will be provided and establishing a timeline for completion.
But even before you can start setting expectations, it’s important to create an overview of where the employee is at: what are their current skills. Visualizing the starting point helps you build upon that. Where are we now and where do we want to go?
There are many great ways of assessing the current skills of the employee. If the employee is an accountant, you could have them audit a financial statement. If the employee is a customer support specialist, you could run a simulation. If the employee is a marketing creative, you could give them a marketing assignment.
Here’s a goal-setting worksheet to help you.
It’s also recommended to ensure that the employee has access to the necessary resources and support to help them succeed in their development.
When it comes to training, there are different resources available for employees. Provide mentors, coaches or subject matter experts to not only guide them but help them stay accountable.
You can use helpful handouts that provide key information, videos that make learning engaging, presentations that encourage participation, and e-books for comprehensive knowledge.
During the execution of the plan, it's important to provide ongoing support and feedback to the employee. Regular check-ins and progress updates can help the employee stay on track and feel motivated to continue their development.
To facilitate continuous growth and development, an effective employee development plan should incorporate regular performance reviews, feedback from managers and peers and other forms of evaluation that fit the specific case.
It is also essential that an employee development plan is flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances. As the employee's skills and job responsibilities evolve over time, the plan should be updated to reflect these changes and ensure that the employee is continuing to grow and develop in their role.
After the plan has been executed, it's important to evaluate its effectiveness in bringing the employee closer to their goals. This may involve conducting a performance review or other feedback mechanism to assess the employee's growth and development. To make sure this is a success, you could use one of the many performance review templates from Visme.
Another key practice is to celebrate the employee's achievements. Acknowledging their hard work can help boost morale and motivation. You can do this in many ways. How about a “skills day” where each employee gets to show off what they learned in the past year? Or maybe a pizza night is more fitting for your company.
Making adjustments to the employee development plan based on feedback and evaluation is crucial, as circumstances and goals may evolve over time. Being flexible and adjusting the plan based on evaluation helps ensure it stays effective and relevant as things change. This way, you can ensure it continues to succeed over time.
An employee development plan is a roadmap that helps employees grow and achieve their career goals within an organization while benefiting the organization by improving retention, performance, and engagement.
A well-structured plan aligns an employee's skills and knowledge with the organization's objectives, which is crucial for an employee's success.
Creating a compelling plan can be a daunting task, though. But, Visme has the tools, templates and features to help you get a headstart. Using our wide range of templates and intuitive editor, you can create any document you want and transform it to fit your brand.
Create stunning animated and interactive training content and export them in multiple formats, including SCORM, xAPI or HTML5. Own the complete content authoring process and collaborate with your team to make it impactful.
Click here to get started and see how Visme can revolutionize your training and development process.
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