We’re always looking for ways to get the most out of our high-performing leaders and often that comes down to whether your objectives are aligned with theirs. Research from ClearCo shows that 74% of workers believe that a lack of employee development opportunities is preventing them from reaching their full potential. You need to understand what makes them tick, what they want to achieve in their career, and how they view their position in your organization. From there, you can work to align those goals with the company’s and hopefully secure their loyalty for the long term while also providing them the space they need to grow and develop.
This is where an individual development plan can be so important. In this article, we’ll explore why that’s the case and how you can make the most of “IDPs”.
What is an Individual Development Plan?
An individual development plan (IDP) is the end result of an exercise between an employee and an employer – where they work together to plot out a development plan for the employee’s career. The idea is to map out how that person will reach their short-term and long-term career goals, in the context of the company’s mission, resources, and growth prospects.
This plan is not necessarily an evaluation – but it often sets the baseline for how future job performance will be measured. This is because an individual development plan helps to clarify the goals and objectives that an employee is being set along a wide time scale. It’s often paired with individualized training plans and upskilling opportunities that can help an employee progress through their career at the company.
Here are some of the key aspects that should be in an individual development plan:
- Career Goals and Aspirations. The plan should include as detailed an outline as possible of the employee’s goals and aspirations. If they don’t feel like the plan encapsulates their own personal objectives then they’re not going to be as invested in carrying it out.
- Milestones. It’s always good to clarify key moments, achievements, and inflection points that represent an opportunity for celebration and reflection. These milestones mark important points along the journey and help to chunk down a career into smaller and more manageable goals.
- Growth Opportunities. The plan should identify and explore opportunities that an employee can take advantage of in order to achieve all the goals and objectives expressed. This can include training and development programs, mentorship, leadership positions, role rotations, and more. Ideally, these should be carefully calibrated with the direction that you are setting so that they directly influence the ability of the employee to grow as they expect.
- Strengths and Weaknesses. This plan also gives an opportunity for an employee to reflect on where they are strong and where they need to improve. Having this self-awareness is important for giving them the best possible foundation for the career growth that they want to experience.
- Action Plan. Lastly, the plan should have a very practical element where you lay out exactly how the employee is going to progress through their career. This needs to be specific and in small steps so that the employee understands exactly what the next action is at any point in time. Naturally, this will change over time, but it’s important to have something on paper to refer to because that’s what sets the stage for what is to come.
Now, let’s look at why such a plan can be so important for growing high-performing leaders in your organization.
Why is an Individual Development Plan Critical for High-Performing Leaders?
There are many reasons why an individual development plan is important for high-performing leaders. Let’s first evaluate the importance of an individual development plan through the lens of the company:
- It identifies and codifies long-term and short-term goals. Going through the process of setting up and maintaining an individual development plan helps a company establish goals and objectives across multiple time scales. Having this clarity about what the organization is trying to accomplish is key for ensuring strategic alignment as it seeks to plan out the path to success.
- It helps the company identify any knowledge skill gaps. Any individual development plan is going to illuminate potential gaps in knowledge and skills that need to be improved upon over time if that employee is going to reach their full potential in the role. Understanding where these gaps exist and letting that inform the future strategic decisions in terms of recruiting can make a big difference to how the company operates – and can change the way that it thinks about its future – as it seeks to optimize its human resources.
- It informs the plans for learning and development initiatives. Building on the point above, these plans also help to clarify where training should be focused in order to enhance the overall skill development through the organization. By finding patterns in the data, companies can then fine-tune where they focus their attention to get the best return on their investment.
- It helps the company prepare its talent pool in terms of succession planning. The exercise of creating individual development plans shows where key-man dependencies lie, and this can inform succession planning efforts across all departments. With better clarity, companies can mitigate the risk of losing key personnel without having the requisite experience and skills to replace them.
- It builds trust between the employer and the employee. When an employee can see that you are invested in their career and that you have a growth plan in place for them, it builds trust and loyalty in that relationship. Understanding the goals and objectives goes a long way to improving morale and performance because the employee knows the direction that the company is going and what role they will be playing on that journey.
Now, let’s look at some of the benefits from an employee’s perspective:
- It helps the employee understand their personal goals and how they can contribute to the organization’s objectives. Having clarity over what is expected of you and how your efforts help the company reach its longer-term goals is important for alignment across the business. An employee then knows what to focus on and can deliver more consistent performance on the aspects that really matter, knowing that their work is going to be appreciated.
- It improves the mental health and job satisfaction of an employee. As humans, we often search for validation and certainty – and that’s what an individual development plan can deliver in a work context. An employee will feel much happier and more in control of their future if they understand exactly what they need to accomplish and how they’re going to get there. Being in this better mental state then increases loyalty, performance, and a variety of other aspects that contribute to a healthier working environment.
- It helps an employee understand their strengths and weaknesses. As we move through our careers, we’re constantly trying to understand ourselves better and find ways to fine-tune our skills in order to be valuable. An individual development plan is a great way to highlight this and help an employee reflect on where their strengths lie (so that they can maximize them) and where they might need to improve. Facilitating this personal growth is important both for the company and for the employee’s progression through their career.
- It drives adaptability for an employee. Sometimes, an individual development plan might call for someone to transition into a new role and take on new challenges. Plotting this out in advance helps to give that person a path to follow, and that improves their ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The alternative would be to throw them in the deep end immediately, but that doesn’t give them the chance to prepare for the change or upskill themselves accordingly.
The sheer scope of the benefits here speaks for itself. Implementing an individual development plan for your key personnel might just be the most important thing you do in terms of employee retention and performance over the long haul.
How Do You Set Up an Individual Development Plan?
Hopefully, we’ve now convinced you of the importance of an individual development plan as you seek to get the most out of your leaders and employees. Now, let’s look at the practical steps that you need to take to implement this in your company.
Step 1: Have the employee conduct a self-assessment.
Before you put any ideas on the table, it’s important to get an honest reflection from the employee about where they see themselves and where they want to go with their career. Have them take an open-ended self-assessment that allows them to express their own goals and objectives so that you better understand their mindset and how they view their career, both now and in the future.
Step 2: Set clearly defined goals.
The next step is to have a nuanced conversation with them where you unpack their self-assessment and compare it to the company’s objectives and view of their growth potential. You’re looking for common patterns and ways to align the two in order to come up with clear goals across the short, medium, and long term. It’s important that is a collaborative exercise so that the employee is fully invested and engaged in what you’re asking from them. The goals set need to be specific, measurable, and the right mix of aspirational and achievable.
Step 3: Curate a strategy for upskilling your employee.
Now that you have the direction in mind, you can start to work on codifying the practical strategies for getting there. What training and development might be needed to upskill the employee? What mentorship might be required to take them to the next level? How are you going to carve out the time and resources to invest in this growth? All these questions need to be answered so that you can lay out a roadmap for how the employee is going to progress to where they need (and want) to be.
Step 4: Set realistic timelines.
In order to ensure accountability and practical action you should select timelines for each of the goals and objectives that you’re setting. They should be realistic, of course, but they should also be calibrated to the ambition level of the person you’re working with. Different people look at their careers in different ways, and so the timelines need to reflect this. But know that you can always adjust these over time if the situation changes.
Step 5: Communicate consistently and iterate continuously.
Finally, you need to understand that this is not a one-and-done process. This plan should be constantly evolving, and that’s only possible when you have a regular follow-up schedule. You should be communicating with the employee as time goes on so that you can adjust where needed and iterate on the plan accordingly. This shows that you really care about them and it acknowledges the fact that the circumstances are always changing and adapting.
Following these steps should help you set up valuable individual development plans for your high-performing leaders. Each plan is going to be different, depending on your situation, but here is an example if you’d like some inspiration to start from. However, we wouldn’t suggest just copying a template and running with it. Take some time to craft one that works for your company and your staff, and you’ll get the most benefit from it.
TRN: Building World-Class Teams to Impact Education and Communities
Here at The Renaissance Network, we are passionate about helping Education and Impact companies attract, recruit, and retain their top talent – so if that’s something we can help with – get in touch today. We’re ready and waiting to be your partners as you seek to develop and grow your organization, in service of your company mission and strategic plan.
