Businesses and employees both thrive when their goals are aligned. Employees develop new skills and master their existing talents. Their employers benefit with improved results, a workforce that’s constantly learning and growing, and robust employee engagement.
What’s more, one of the most satisfying parts of being a manager is helping your employees succeed and flourish. One of the best ways to foster your employees’ growth is through the use of Individual Development Plans (IDPs).
What is an individual development plan?
First, let’s get some basic concepts straight. An IDP is not the same as an employee review or a performance improvement plan for struggling employees. In fact, the IDP model can be particularly effective for ambitious, high-performing employees.
Second, when the process is working right, the IDP is a living document—not something that’s filled out annually, stashed in the HR folder, and forgotten. The IDP process is more like a partnership between the employee and their supervisor than a top-down set of edicts and demands.
So what exactly is an IDP? It's a brief document, created collaboratively by the employee and their manager, that lays out a plan that both helps employees advance their professional goals and helps companies achieve their business objectives.
Here’s how it works.
What’s the best way to structure the IDP process.
1. Encourage employees to take some time to consider their skills, goals and career objectives.
Are there work experiences that will help your employee build a portfolio of skills that will help them advance? Are there training opportunities that will help them develop new skills or help them get better at the ones they already have?
Tip: Be specific and make sure your employee’s plan lines up with their responsibilities. “I thrive in circumstances involving cross-team collaboration and want to manage a multi-team project in the next fiscal year” balances employee goals with business imperatives. “I want to be more creative” is an admirable goal, but doesn’t directly address how that quality would manifest in the workplace.
Tip: Let your employees identify their own objectives, so long as they align with business needs. One of the best features of IDPs is that they foster employee ownership over their success in your company.
Tip: Encourage employees to do their self-assessment in the context of your organization’s culture and values. For example, ask them to consider how they and their work:
- Help the business better serve customers.
- Foster new, innovative ways of conducting business
- Establish a bold, entrepreneurial mindset for getting things done
- Demonstrate effective collaboration and teamwork
- Establish trust and demonstrate integrity.
2. Invite employees to propose a plan to achieve those goals—then help them refine it.
Once an employee sets out their goals, their existing skills and strengths, and areas they’d like to develop, have them set up a practical plan to achieve their objectives.
Plans can include participation in special projects, learning from internal mentors and coaches, and stretch assignments, as well as formal course work and independent research.
Tip: While IDPs are employee-led, good managers often have insights about their team members’ skills and competencies that employees don’t recognize themselves. Think carefully about what the employee offers to the team—they may not realize the full scope of how they contribute.
Tip: Make sure employees are specific, both in what they plan to do and when they plan to finish it. “Prepare data analysis by June 11 to support this quarter’s marketing push” works better than “Investigate course offerings.” Many businesses encourage “SMART” goals—this means objectives should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound.
3. Work together with your employees to establish mutual buy-in and provide needed support.
This is an important conversation. At this point, your employee will have identified development areas and outlined plans to grow. Now's your opportunity to help them ensure that their goals align with current business objectives, that they are realistic, and that they’re based on a reasonably clear self-assessment of strengths and areas for improvement.
It’s also your chance to suggest resources and other support that can help your employees on their journey.
It may be setting them up with potential mentors, it could be adding them to a team that is taking on a new challenge, or it might be helping them to identify courses to take or other learning opportunities.
Tip: Many businesses use the 70-20-10 development model:
70%: Learning on the job (e.g., stretch goals, job rotation, special projects, etc.)
20%: Learning from relationships (e.g., mentoring, coaching, etc.)
10%: Learning from training (online courses, best-practice research, conferences, workshiops, books, etc.)
Tip: While an employee may want to explore a host of development opportunities, the best IDPs focus on a handful of goals—two to four in many cases—that can be tracked and built upon.
4. Follow up, review, evolve.
This is the key to making the IDP process deliver. To make the IDP a living document, reference it in one-to-one meetings, and work with your employee to make sure they have what they need to stay on target.
Encourage your employees to reference the document regularly and ask questions if they run into obstacles. Offer guidance, support, or resources when possible.
If an employee completes the elements of their plan, work with them to build on their past successes. If business priorities change, or the employee’s interests evolve, make sure the IDP is updated to current goals.
How can you—and your employees—get the most from the IDP model?
The IDP is essentially a collaborative approach to career development. The employee and their manager craft the document together, both have ownership, and both are invested in achieving positive outcomes.
And since it’s not a passive, top-down experience for the employee, they’ll have to do some meaningful self-reflection and thought.
Follow these tips to make sure your team gets the results you’re looking for.
For employees:
- Think deeply about what you want to achieve in your work.
- Be candid about your strengths and areas for improvement.
- Understand how your development goals align with your company’s business objectives.
- Identify specific actions and timelines to achieve them.
- Think about what kind of support you need to succeed.
For managers:
- Provide support and honest guidance on your employee’s goals and development plans.
- Work with your employee to make sure their goals align with the business, and make sure they understand how they’re connected.
- Use your knowledge of your company and the business landscape to identify resources to support your employee. This can range from shadowing co-workers and formal mentoring to special projects and training courses.
What has your experience been with IDPs or other employee development tools? Any success stories you’d like to share—or pitfalls you’ve learned to avoid? Leave your stories, suggestions, and questions in the comments section below to start the conversation with colleagues in the LenovoPRO Community!
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