Tomas Laurinavicius is a writer and designer. He's a co-founder of Best Writing, an all-in-one platform connecting writers with businesses. He has built multiple online businesses and helps startups and enterprises scale their content marketing opera.
Tomas Laurinavicius ContributorTomas Laurinavicius is a writer and designer. He's a co-founder of Best Writing, an all-in-one platform connecting writers with businesses. He has built multiple online businesses and helps startups and enterprises scale their content marketing opera.
Written By Tomas Laurinavicius ContributorTomas Laurinavicius is a writer and designer. He's a co-founder of Best Writing, an all-in-one platform connecting writers with businesses. He has built multiple online businesses and helps startups and enterprises scale their content marketing opera.
Tomas Laurinavicius ContributorTomas Laurinavicius is a writer and designer. He's a co-founder of Best Writing, an all-in-one platform connecting writers with businesses. He has built multiple online businesses and helps startups and enterprises scale their content marketing opera.
Contributor Kelly Main Staff ReviewerKelly Main is a Marketing Editor and Writer specializing in digital marketing, online advertising and web design and development. Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist c.
Kelly Main Staff ReviewerKelly Main is a Marketing Editor and Writer specializing in digital marketing, online advertising and web design and development. Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist c.
Kelly Main Staff ReviewerKelly Main is a Marketing Editor and Writer specializing in digital marketing, online advertising and web design and development. Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist c.
Kelly Main Staff ReviewerKelly Main is a Marketing Editor and Writer specializing in digital marketing, online advertising and web design and development. Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist c.
Updated: Jun 8, 2024, 8:45am
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Businesses know that it’s vital to invest in staff. But after the standard onboarding and training phases are over, the work is not done. Employers often find employees in need of additional assistance in order to advance within their roles and an employee development plan is a key way to do just that. Luckily, learning how to create an employee development plan doesn’t have to be difficult. Follow along to learn more about what it entails and the three steps involved.
An employee development plan is a plan that outlines that person’s professional growth within your organization.
Here are the three most frequently used types of employee development plans:
Here are the key benefits of employee development plans:
Here’s a three-step process for creating an individual employee development plan.
Get clear on the long-term business goals of your company. Some examples of long-term business goals:
What’s important is deciding what you want. Then, you can start thinking about what you will need to reach that goal.
For example, suppose all you want is a sustainable lifestyle business. In that case, consider providing your employees with opportunities for professional development within their current roles. Meanwhile, growth will require hiring more managers, so if that’s what you are after, you should identify employees interested in the managerial track and support them in developing relevant skills.
Finally, consider your immediate priorities. If there’s an upcoming launch, you might want to talk to your marketing person to see if you can do anything to support them. Something as simple as buying them a reputable online course on Facebook Ads can help make that launch a success.
Avoid making assumptions about your employees’ goals. Talk to them and find out how they envision their careers.
Entrepreneurs often assume that everyone wants to progress toward leadership roles. But plenty of people have no interest in that and want to do great work in their current position instead of taking on managerial duties.
It’s also important to consider your employee’s career ambitions in the context of their lives. For example, someone might love to take on a leadership role one day, but if they have a baby on the way, now may not be the right time for that. People react differently to the same situations, so you shouldn’t make assumptions here.
To continue with the baby-on-the-way example, one person might want to slow down to spend more time with their family, while another might go into career overdrive out of the desire to provide a better life. Again, communicate with your employees to find out what they want.
Also, someone just starting their career may still need to learn what they want and that’s OK. You can help them discover that by providing opportunities to try different things. Once they get more clarity, you can create an employee development plan that supports their newfound ambitions.
Once you know your employees’ goals, work together to create individual employee development plans. There’s a possibility that the employee knows what they need better than you do.
For example, if you’re a tech startup founder but not a technical person, you can probably safely assume that software engineers know better what they need to improve on and the best way to go about it. Of course, if you’re not just a founder but also a chief technology officer (CTO), you might be able to provide valuable guidance to software engineers that are less experienced than you.
The same applies to all other roles: marketers, writers, social media managers―you name it. Be open-minded and listen to your employees. They probably already know how to get better at what they do and need you to provide support. Also, when switching career tracks, it makes sense to ask people already working in a similar role to mentor that employee.
Follow-up will depend on the type of employee development plan. Get feedback from the employee, discuss the progress made and determine what can be improved regarding employee development at your organization. Developing skills within the current role should be an ongoing process.
Consider working out pay raises that reflect the employee’s increasing value to give them the incentive to stay at your company. Meanwhile, when it comes to progressing within the current career track or switching to a new one, the endpoint should be getting a promotion or starting a new role. After that, you should work with the employee in question to create a new development plan that reflects this change.
As you can see, there’s a lot of variance between employee development plans as they are highly dependent on the goals of the employee in question. However, every employee development plan should include:
Financial planning is also necessary. How much are you prepared to invest in this employee development plan?
Remember to account not just for actual expenses, such as paying for certifications but also for their lost productivity and that of the person mentoring them, whether that’s you or someone else. Note that short-term productivity loss is inevitable when someone is learning on the job. Hopefully, it will pay off in the long run.
Download Free Employee Development Plan PDF
Now, let’s look at an example of an employee development plan.
Employee development is one of the smartest long-term investments you can make as an entrepreneur. It can help you attract talent, improve employee retention and engagement and achieve business goals.
