Employee Personal Development

At best, employee personal development plans (PDPs) create a win-win situation. as employer or employee, you'll gain from having a well-managed career pathway. This article explains why and how.

The PDP assists a worker to identify his goals and ambitions.  It also permits the company to guide the worker in a realistic assessment of his or her skills, knowledge, understanding and overall competence. This enables frank and open discussion about where your career is taking you.

Employee Personal Developments a Human Resources Developer

First, you enable an employee to identify his strengths and weaknesses, plus ambitions, aspirations and no-go areas. Once this is accomplished, the use of employee personal development tools will facilitate in updating his skills to meet with the changing needs of the corporate environment. 

Retaining talented, flexible staff is vital in today's competitive climate. Effective staff development can contribute to that. Some of the most effective employee development programs provide opportunities for employees to network outside of their customary teams or departments.

In one corporate coaching assignment, for example, the group of coaches identified a series of cross-cutting themes faced by managers. Coaches identified these themes from our one-on-one coaching sessions – and our coaches debriefing / coach group supervision sessions. We developed an action-learning format for the managers to run self-programing groups based on these themes.

Managers self-selected groups to attend – and we later found out that they had many useful spin-offs.  In this case, implementation of negotiated EDP broke down the barriers implicit in "silo-thinking."  The resulting synergies result in new interdepartmental dynamics.

Employee Personal Development Creates Positive Attitudes

Empowering your employees in their own personal development plans is also a way to demonstrate your interest in their professional development.  Employees recognize this investment in them by the company – and most respond positively. This supplies a significant boost to company morale, and it also strengthens the psychological contract that exists between the employer and the employee. 

Your staff are likely to be far more proactively engaged in corporate problems and issues, supporting morale and productivity  As Dr. Steven Covey explains, "You can buy your employees' time and muscle...but their hearts and minds come free." 

This concept has previously come to the fore employing basic theories such as Maslow's motivational pyramid.  When you are able to lift up your front-line staff to brainstorm with your core personnel, the resulting creativity will resolve a richer mix of potential solutions.

Sensitive employee personal development planning helps managers stay in close contact with emerging potential and aptitudes – helping department heads and leaders make key strategic decisions about who, how and when to promote ... or in difficult times, who to retain.

From a settled staff, the employer will appreciate this increase in employee engagement in the form of a sharper competitive edge.  Staff turnover decreases, and your retained employee base is loyal with the very specific skills and qualities that are most needed by your business.  And the build-up of solid core competencies is fundamental to a company's survival in today's market.

This new brand of engaged, passionate employee becomes your own ambassador in the world outside the corporation. Each of these ambassadors attracts similarly effective new staff.  This ultimately renders your company a highly rated employer, both industrially and geographically: the kind of powerful, word-of-mouth marketing you can't really buy.

Employee Personal Development – how?

You begin with a clear mission, something beyond what is published on your web site or presented in your annual reports. Does your mission actually reflect the lived experience of your staff? Perhaps the question is better put the other way round. Does your staff experience the mission in practice?

Does your employees' experience reflect your mission and key policy statements? This is one of the starting places of good employee pd.

If it does, it provides  a clear starting place for:

• clarity about job description



• clarity about the person specification



• a planned induction that clarifies what this means on the ground



• clear induction and plainly defined job descriptions



• a cut-and-dried basis for performance reviews



• the development of pre-appraisal processes and materials



• a systematic monitoring of specific employee personal development



• summarizing in an employee personal development plan

Learning contracts can be used to timetable the acquisition of specific new skills, knowledge or experience. These place specific employee personal development aims into a specific learning agenda and contextualize them in the needs of the workplace.

Responsibilities from both employee and employer are referenced; this can include courses available to employees, time and funding provided by employers to attend them, committed participation from the employees, and so forth.

Employee personal development - The Individual's View

What if you look at this from the standpoint of the employee?

It's vital that you assess the level of employee personal development available to you.  Clearly you give your best efforts to your employer, and there are rewards to reap beyond monetary compensation.  You should ask yourself:  Has the employer demonstrated sufficient commitment to you to retain you, your energy, and your motivation?

Things are changing quicker than ever – a good continuing professional development plan should – probably above all at the present time – prepare you to be flexible and able to respond to a diversity of challenges.

An effective employee personal development plan keeps you on your toes.  It offers a range of challenging options. Expertise in so-called 'soft-skills' are increasingly prized and can often help you compensate for some technical shortcomings, at least temporarily.

Attending employee personal development programs, events and workshops enable you to broaden your network of contacts. They will sometimes create that serendipitous encounter ... just when you need it. Add 'good networker' to your list of soft skills – but be fair to your contacts. Stay in touch during good times, put in more than you take out.

Some courses are available to professionals from a broad spectrum of employers.  This offers a way of sampling various workplace cultures.  It presents you with an opportunity to see how you measure up against others from different workplaces. Consider your own career path. Use your perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of others to reflect on your own, monitor them and plan a new learning opportunity, if possible.

Employee Personal Development and Work-Life Balance

You will realize there is more to life than work! 

Do take opportunities to reflect on the whole balance of your life. Fine-tune that balance when the need arises. The most skilled professionals simply don't perform – or perform erratically and unpredictably – when their batteries are drained. Lack of consistency is regularly cited as a key factor in disabling teams and relationships with colleagues.

So don't forget too take care of your most important resource: your emotional, psychological and physical well being. Life is a marathon. Don't treat it like a sprint!

Take pride in looking after yourself: stay in shape. Your colleagues and your family will thank you for it.