Creating Employee Development Plans

Employee Development refers to efforts taken by organization to upgrade the existing knowledge of employees, enhance their skills and encourage them to take up new courses or training programs. Employee development activities play an important role not only in the professional but also personal growth of employees.

Individuals who do not brush up their skills from time to time find it difficult to survive in the long run. Try to learn something new every day. Find out what all new courses are available and how would they benefit you professionally? Do not register for any irrelevant course which would be of no use to you.

It is a common practice that employees do not take training programs seriously. They tend to find excuses to miss the trainings and consider them as a mere waste of time. Employees should not attend trainings just for the sake of their attendance.

Human resource professionals need to be extremely careful while creating employee development plans. No two employees are similar. Employee development plans should be designed in lines with the employee’s needs and requirements.

Speak to your employees and try to find out what all new skills they need to acquire for better results. Development plans should be aimed at making an individual a better professional by encouraging him to expand his/her horizons, upgrade existing knowledge and think beyond his/her domain. One should never limit himself/herself in the job market.

Employee development Plans should be created keeping in mind the following things:

  • What all skills an employee possesses?
  • Key responsibility areas/Job responsibilities of an individual
  • What all skills he/she needs to acquire for an increased output?
  • In what all genres apart from his current profile he/she can contribute?

Employee development plans should benefit an employee who in turn can benefit his/her organization by successfully accomplishing goals and objectives.

A manager while creating employee development plans should not only focus on an employee’s current job responsibilities but also think from a broader perspective. Trainings and employee development activities should help an individual in his/her entire career span as well. An employee should be able to benefit from the trainings even when he/she moves to a different organization.

Employees should be made to work on live projects which would provide them real world experiences. This way employee learns new skills while on job.

Design online course material on topics such as Soft skills, Interview Etiquette, Dressing Etiquette and so on (which would help employees in their job)and upload the same in web portals. Ask employees to login and go through the study material once in a while. Make sure the content is interesting and informative. Add some nice images and graphics to grab the attention of the readers. You can also conduct an internal online test of all employees based on their study every month. Felicitate who ever performs well. This would motivate other employees to go through the study material seriously.

Encourage employees to read a lot. No employee can work for eight to nine hours at a stretch. Instead of wasting time in gossiping, employees should pick up relevant magazines which would help them with new learnings.

Divide the employees in groups (Employees with similar needs can be put in one group) and assign a mentor for the group. Mentor should not be a mentor just for the namesake; he/she should help employees brush up their skills and enhance knowledge.

Employee development activities ought to motivate employees to participate in conferences and seminars.


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The article is Written By “Prachi Juneja” and Reviewed By Management Study Guide Content Team. MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. We are a ISO 2001:2015 Certified Education Provider. To Know more, click on About Us. The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.


Employee Development