As an employer, it is important to remember that investing in your employees is an essential component of your strategy for the growth and expansion of your business. But what is the best way to go about this? What do your employees really need from you?
They need a well-put-together plan to equip them with the goals, skills and strengths needed to advance their career, coupled with the steps needed to achieve these goals, skills and strengths. This is called an Employee Development Plan. These plans optimize growth by increasing employee engagement and ensuring team members and leadership are working towards the same short-term and long-term goals. When management invests the time and energy to create an individual development plan for employees, their employees feel more confident in their role as they are more connected to leadership and more in tune with the company’s mission.
So, what does the Employee Development Planning process actually look like? At Achilles Group, we help you start with SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Relevant, and Time-based). We create goals that build on an individual employee’s strengths. Working on a person’s weaknesses alone sometimes doesn’t ring true to the employee and can feel more like punishment than development. By focusing 80/20 on strengths/weaknesses, you allow the employee to gain confidence as you build their trust in your intentions towards their success.
It’s important to find goals that spark a personal interest for the employee. This is accomplished by working with the employee to name a few goals. They may already have some development plan ideas of their own! If not, naming goals together is a great way to get the buy-in you need from the employee for the plan to succeed.
Finally, make sure that the plan puts some, if not all of the responsibility, on the employee to complete. You should provide whatever resources are needed to be successful, however, we believe that if we give employees all the tools they need to succeed and a road map to success, it’s ultimately the employee’s responsibility to take the journey.
Interested in implementing career development plans for your employees? We can help with that. Contact us, and we’ll set up a Discovery Session to determine the best strategy and Employee Development Plan approach that’s unique to your organization.
