With the work landscape constantly evolving, organizations that are able to provide opportunities for variety in their employees’ learning and development experiences can create resources that set them apart from their competitors.
Unlike other paper-based policies that organizations tend to rely on, the Employee Development Plan (EDP) is one of the best ways to structure growth. The development plan provides an organized way for employees to develop new skills, advance their careers, and contribute to achieving goals that ultimately help the organization in its purpose.
No matter if you're managing a large team or have a small business, you will certainly save time and resources by finding the right employee development plan template to customize. Using employee development plan templates makes it easier to align your employees' learning goals with the goals of your organization.
These resources provide a way to establish consistency, track the progress of employees' growth experiences, and align different departments' learning.
Whether you are looking for a development plan for a senior role or development plans for individual contributors, this article will include various professional development plan templates to create customized development plans for any role, and we hope to include real examples and many downloadable templates to support your learning and development implementation.
What Is an Employee Development Plan Template?
An employee development plan template is a structured document or digital format used to outline career goals, skills to develop, training resources, timelines, and evaluation metrics for individual employee growth and performance improvement.
Importance of Using Templates
An employee development plan form helps standardize the development process across your organization. Instead of beginning anew every time, managers and HR groups can utilize established templates to initiate a conversation and monitor measurable outcomes.
Templates are particularly helpful when managing multi-faceted teams or groups with various needs. For example, a career development plan template may be designed with emphasis on upward mobility, while a staff improvement plan template helps underperforming employees get back to satisfactory performance.
Companies can be fair, clear and transparent in their employee development approach by using a consistent template structure. This leads to increased employee engagement, retention, and performance. According to a LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers.
Furthermore, with remote and hybrid workforces becoming the accepted norm, digital individual development plan templates help with collaboration and alignment across locations and time zones.
What Are Some Types of Employee Development Plan Templates?
Different roles and situations require different kinds of development plans. Here are a few of the most typical and useful templates used by organizations around the world.
1. Employee Development Plan Template
This is the most common way to align employee goals with company goals. There are typically sections that include:
- Current position and responsibilities
- Development goals
- Action items/training
- Milestones and deadlines
- Manager feedback section
This is a good all-in-one approach to organizations building professional growth initiatives across their departments.
2. Career Development Plan Template
For professionals who are ambitious and want to go up the corporate ladder or just want to make sure the climb happens slowly, this template is focused on the long-term growth of their career. Here, we can emphasize:
- Career ambitions
- Skill gaps
- Certifications or qualifications required
- Role ambition targets
- Succession planning alignment
This is also a great tool to identify potential leaders with whom a company may want to invest early on.
3. Personal Development Plan Template
There aren't just professional aspects to development, either. Personal development is important for employees' feeling of job satisfaction and confidence - not everything is KPIs and profit. This template can guide employees to make personal commitments to their own goals, including objectives such as:
- Improve public speaking capabilities
- Study a different language
- Manage stress or work-life balance
This can be a huge morale boost for the workers and demonstrates the company cares about them as a person, not just as a statistic.
4. Professional Development Plan Template
This one focuses on growing job-related skills. It is most beneficial for workforce development in short, fast-paced industries: Tech, Marketing, Health Care; the list goes on. It can cover:
- Highly specific skills for the personal development plan
- Reference to workshops or online learning that the employee would like to commit to
- Measurable outcomes of the commitments (certifications, KPI targets, and development outcomes)
- Feedback or comments from mentors or peer evaluations.
It is driven by outputs and results, and it reinforces the work to be incorporated into performance reviews.
5. Individual Development Plan Template
This template is used by both employees and managers; by allowing employees to develop a plan that reflects their individual strengths, areas of development and aspirations, it will be unique to each employee. This template is highly flexible and typically includes:
- Self-reflection
- Preferred methods of learning
- Personal learning journeys
- Short and long-term goals
By generating ownership and independence for career development, this type of plan is valuable.
6. Employee Development Plan Form
This is a more structured document used with employees to document performance review meetings and revenue/equipment onboard processes. The employee development plan is typically a printable or fillable form that includes:
- Employee's personal information
- Training history
- New development goals
- Reviewer notes
The employee development plan is directly linked to document and audit requirements.
7. Staff Improvement Plan Template
The staff improvement plan is specific to under-performing employees and will therefore focus on improvement strategies. As part of the normal process, the staff improvement plan would ideally indicate:
- Underperformance classifications identified
- Desired improvements to be made
- Support options (e.g., mentorship, training)
- Timeline to review the improvement impacts and consequences
The staff improvement plan is typically used as part of a planned Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) process.
