How to build an effective employee development plan

Investing in career development and care for your employees keeps them motivated and engaged. They want to learn and grow in their roles. For you, this kind of investment yield benefits like lowered attrition rates, improved morale and productivity, and alignment with business goals. A key way to accomplish this is with an employee development plan.

Employee development plans cultivate and empower workers to broaden their knowledge—either by learning new skills or deepening the ones they already have. Growth and development opportunities are a top motivator among employees.  

According to LinkedIn, 93% of organizations are concerned about employee retention. The professional networking platform found that a primary way to keep those rates down is by providing learning opportunities. 

Employee engagement is a huge part of every workplace. Encouraging and motivating an employee by having an interest in their vision of a work life makes for better management and a better work environment. 

Learning and skill development is a direct path to engaging your employees. It can and should be available at different points in an employee’s career at a business. But structured learning—that is tied to skill development or setting employees onto a new career path—can unlock new opportunities. Clear actionable steps lead to career growth and advancement. 

This guide will help you understand: 

• What an employee development plan (EDP) is
• Benefits of an EDP for both employers and employees
• The different types of EDPs for employees are varying stages of their career
• What to consider when creating an EDP
• Tips to make the most of an EDP
  
  

What is an employee development plan

An employee development plan (EDP) is a structured process that helps employees further their given skillset and knowledge in the workplace. It’s meant to be specific in guiding an employee to achieve a certain goal or reach a new level (i.e. from entry-level to specialist) and provide the steps to get there. 

Employee development plans are specific to the employee. No one’s EDP should be the same as someone else’s. There may be a similar path or some steps to take but, crucially, each plan requires some finessing to incorporate an employee’s preferences such as learning, ideal role or resources needed to complete each step. 

An EDP provides important guidance for employees on how to level-up their skills or reach whatever leadership goal they have, but it also similarly lets them know their employer or manager cares about and values them as a worker. 

Benefits of an employee development plan

Employee development plans are incredibly useful for both employers and employees to achieve short- and long-term goals. It’s a chance to identify and clarify needs around the business, employee skill development and next steps in a career. 

Consider the following benefits for creating an employee development plan: 

• Bridge skill gaps: Close knowledge gaps and up-skill employees, increasing the amount of workers who have additional skill competencies.
• Reduce turnover: Workers desire steps for growth, both in their own role or an expansion to a different one in a different department. If workers don’t see that path laid out for them, they are likely to leave and find a role that will.
• Competitive offering: Human resources and people operations workers let potential talent know what their growth opportunities are to remain highly competitive in the job market. EDPs similarly attract talent in the way it can reduce turnover.
• Foster culture of learning: Employees want to be encouraged by their employers and managers, and know that they have the tools and resources to achieve their goals. In fact, good management is determined, in part, by how much an employee is recognized and encouraged to develop their skills. Keep your employees up-to-date on all that they need to know to do their job, including technological advances, new programs and changing digital norms. This flexibility and agility to remain current also helps give employers a competitive edge.
• Align employee and business goals: Provide a clear picture for what your workers do and how they are contributing to the business. Rewarding and recognizing that work is essential. Connect additional skill development to company goals and growth strategy.
  
  

4 types of employee development plans

A one-size-fits all approach to your employee development plan won’t help you and it certainly won’t help your employee. Each employee will have a different set of needs and desires, which will likely evolve and change over time. There are a number of different types and templates employers can use, generally, for employee development plans that speak to where an employee is at in their career (new, leadership, etc.) or what they want to develop (skills).

Consider the following four different employee development plan types with template suggestions when crafting a plan for your employees. 

1. New employee development plan

A new employee development plan focuses on onboarding your employee to their role. New employees need to learn the specifics of their job—from stakeholders to software programs to meeting cadences. A new employee may be proficient in a certain area of their role but you require them to lean into another area. This will take some consideration and need to be built into their EDP and overall new employee goals.

For example, your employee may be used to data entry but you had a need for more customer-facing sales contact, too. An EDP for this new worker may include shadowing sales reps, listening to older sales calls and reading through resources on sales techniques. 

What do include in a new employee EDP: 

• Current strengths and skills
• Areas of improvement (e.g. new skills to add)
• Business goals and KPIs to measure progress
• Action plan including deadline for goals 
  
  

2. Leadership development 

Modern workers are often traveling two different career paths: individual contributor and people manager. Even at deskless jobs, employees at restaurants or hospitality at-large, as an example, often focuses on separating workers into these two categories. In both cases, these tracks can send employees toward a leadership path.

Individual contributors don’t have direct reports or people to manage. People managers, on the other hand, do—and there’s a lot of focus for potential leaders on having been able to manage others on a team. 

A leadership EDP will give an employee the opportunity to show their leadership. Leaders need soft skills around communication, motivation and encouragement, which they can learn from leadership-centric training.

They’ll need to learn how to: 

• Delegate work 
• Manage time and employee expectations
• Keep up with deadlines
• Have potentially very difficult conversations with employees
• Communicate effectively and efficiently

Identify existing gaps like the ones above in your employee to shape their leadership EDP. For example, they may already know how to delegate and manage time and employee work but lack the soft skills to handle difficult conversations. Here, you’d want to focus the EDP, and any additional training, on developing better listening, confrontation and supportive soft skills.  

What do include in a leadership EDP: 

• Coaching and shadowing/mentoring
• Course work for both soft and hard skills (e.g. interpersonal and communication training)
• Leadership development courses (e.g. people manager training)
• Action plan that includes deadline/timeframe to complete each goal
  
  

3. Career development 

Employees aren’t so fixed in their roles. Many workers pivot to another department, role or industry altogether. If you have an employee who is looking to change their career path, a career development plan is best for them. 

A career EDP focuses on what your employee wants to do and how that aligns with the business’s needs. For example, you may have a customer service representative who is interested in getting into project management. A good place to start for an EDP is to see what skills they already have, what other skills are required, and where in the business they could execute on this new role. 

What to include in a career development EDP:

• Mentorship or shadowing 
• Training and course work for skill development
• Coaching to discuss career goals 
• Deadline for when additional work needs to be completed
• Action plan with timeline for when to make the move to the new role
  
  

4. Skills development

A majority of businesses worldwide noted they have a skill-gap issue, which won’t resolve itself so easily in the next decade. While these companies noted to McKinsey that it’ll decrease over time—from 22% now to 5% in six to 10 years—there’s still an issue with what employees know how to do in order to effectively perform their work.

A solution to this issue is an EDP focused on expanding an employee’s skills. 

For a skills EDP to be effective, managers must first understand what they’re missing. Where in your organization or small business do you need help? This will help you determine the length and depth of this EDP path for an employee. 

A skills EDP may be the directive of the business and not the employee. If you decide it’s time to up-skill your workers, from an employee’s perspective, ask if this new skill aligns with their career path. Or is it simply needed for the business at this time? Take all of this into consideration because whatever new skill you require of your worker must make sense to them and what they already do (or want to do!)

What to include in a skills EDP:

• New skill(s)
• Business need/goal and explanation 
• Timeframe/deadline for completion
• Resources to learn new skills including software training, course work, mentoring, on the job training
• Tracking and monitoring results
• Action plan that includes steps and metrics to measure (e.g. KPIs)
  
  

What to do to create an employee development plan

Employee development plans are as unique as your employees but there are a few factors that inform every EDP. If you or your employee are new to creating an employee development plan, consider the following:

1. Analyze employee goals and skills: Work with your employee to identify their goals and skills, and which areas are best to support now versus in the future. Goals are more achievable if they are broken down into smaller, more manageable sub-goals.
   
   
2. Understand and integrate business needs: An EDP must also align to your business’s goals. For example, an employee may have a desire to manage other people. If your business is growing, which requires you to hire more people, it would be beneficial to put that employee with managerial aspirations into leadership training. Other examples may include moving employees to new departments or learning new software and programs that work better for the business. Whatever the needs of the business are, keep those top of mind for EDPs.
   
   
3. Define timeframe (short-term vs. long-term): Not every employee has a long-term goal, and that’s okay. In fact, it may be better to work through a series of short-term goals first, checking off a to-do list of sorts, to better understand a longer-term goal.
   
   
4. Set a deadline: EDPs require structure. Make sure you’re generating a timeline and deadline dates for specific tasks, programs, or milestone moments to remain on track. Create a plan for reward and recognition to ensure they’re getting acknowledged for all of the work they are doing and the work needed to level up skills. 
   
   

Tips for creating your own employee development plan

Now that you have a handle on how to create an EDP and the different types that exist, consider the following tips to make the most out of them. 

• Personalization: Many of your employees may have similar goals (e.g., people manager, individual contributor, c-suite aspirations, etc.) but how they achieve them will not be the same. What they need to be recognized is different, too. Keep in mind what your employee will need to succeed. Which programs or resources do they need? What kind of learner are they? What kind of financial person are they? Give your employees the Money Mindsets quiz to help understand a part of the whole of who they are. It’s up to your employee to help you understand their needs but it’s your responsibility to consider them when creating an EDP.
  
  
• Try the 70/20/10 model: Tie your workers’ growth to real, on-the-job experience while balancing it with other facets. JB Bergeron, ZayZoon’s Strategic People Partner, suggests trying the following formula: 70% on-the-job experience with 20% coaching or mentoring and 10% formal training.
  
  
• Regular updates: Bergeron notes that growth is continuous. Prioritize regular updates on EDPs over keeping them on an annual basis. Plans aren’t meant to calcify—they can and should be flexible with a person’s changing needs and circumstances, which is best monitored on a consistent basis.
  
  
• Make the time: Employees want managers who will make time for their professional development and goals. It’s essential that you carve out time when you can to help your workers make the most of their jobs.
  
  
• External factors: Don’t forget that external factors will contribute to how your employee works, what their goals are, and even how they shape their EDP. Employees today are stressed about pretty much everything: financial health and wellness (debt and money stresses are through the roof!), climate change, lay-offs and redundancies. You name it and they probably feel it.
  
  Existential crises aside, connect with your employees on a person-to-person level. Give them space when they need it. Extend timelines or change resources, if necessary.