Indicates a section which shows how the directed learning links to the weeks lecture and/or practical activity

Indicates a research activity to conduct using the internet

Indicates a point to pause, think about and answer some questions

Indicates a reading activity

Indicates an individual or group activity to complete

Indicates information about a current news story relating to this exploration topic

Personal Development Plans

Personal development plans specify courses of action to be taken to improve performance.  Achieving the goals stated in the development plan allows employees to keep abreast of changes in their field or profession.  Such plans highlight an employee’s strengths and the areas in need of development, and they provide an action plan to improve in areas of weaknesses and further develop areas of strength.  In a nutshell, personal development plans allow employees to answer the following questions:

• How can I continually learn and grow in the next year?
• How can I do better in the future?
• How can I avoid performance problems faced in the past

Developmental Plan Objectives

The overall objective of a development plan is to encourage continuous learning, performance improvement, and personal growth.  In addition, developmental plans have other more specific objectives:

• Improve performance in current job.  A good development plan helps employees meet performance standards.  Thus, a developmental plan includes suggested courses of action to address each of the performance dimensions that are deficient.
• Sustain performance in current job.  A good developmental plan provides tools so that employees can continue to meet and exceed expectations regarding the current job.  Thus, the plan includes suggestions about how to continue to meet and exceed expectations for each of the performance dimensions included in the appraisal form.
• Prepare employees for advancement.  A good developmental plan includes advice and courses of action that should be taken so that employees will be able to take advantage of future opportunities and career advancement.  Specifically, a good plan indicates which new competencies and behaviours should be learned to help with a career advancement.
• Enrich the employee’s work experience.  Even if career opportunities within the organization are not readily available , a good plan provides employees with growth opportunities and opportunities to learn new skills.  These opportunities provide employees with intrinsic rewards and a more challenging work experience, even if the new skills learned are not a formal part of their jobs.  Such opportunities can make jobs more attractive and serve as a powerful employee retention tool.  In addition, the news skills can be useful in case of lateral transfers within the organization.

Content of Developmental plan

What does a developmental plan look like?  Plans should include a description of specific steps to be taken and specific objectives to reach.  In other words, what is the new skill or knowledge that will be acquired and how will this occur?  This includes information on the resources and strategies that will be used to achieve the objectives.  For example, will the employee learn the skills form a co-worker through on-the-job training?  Will the company reimburse the employee for expenses associated with taking an on-line course?

The plan’s objectives should include not only the end product, such as the new skill to be learned, but also the completion date and how the supervisor will know whether the new skill has indeed been acquired.  For example, in the case of the on-line course, the objective could state that the course will be completed by July 23, 2007, and the employee is expected to receive a grade B+ or better.  Overall, objectives included in the developmental plans should be practical, specific, time oriented, linked to a standard, and developed jointly by the supervisor and the employee.

An additional important feature of developmental plans is that they should keep the needs of both the organization and the employee in mind.  The choice of what specific skills or performance areas will be improved is dictated by the needs of the organization, especially when the organization is investing in the plan.  In addition, the plan created is dictated by the needs of the individual.  The supervisor and the employee need to agree on what development or new skills will help enrich the employees’ work experience , as well as help accomplish organizational goals now or in the near future.

Source:  Aguinis H (2009) Performance Management, 2^nd Ed, New Jersey, Pearson Prentica Hall pp180-183

Example Action Verbs:

• adjust, alter, analyse, amend, answer, approve, assemble, assess, audit, build,
• calculate, call, carry out, categorise, check, climb, close, complete, decide, describe,
• develop, diagnose, divide, draft, draw, eliminate, explain, estimate, extract, file,
• find, fit, generate, hire, hold, identify, implement, inform, interview, justify, label,
• lift, list, locate, lower, make, mark, map, monitor, name, negotiate, obtain, operate,
• perform, prepare, place, plan, prove, question, read, recommend, remove, report,
• research, review, schedule, select, sell, solve, spend, state, supervise, spell, test, train,
• translate, turn, update, use, verify, weigh, write

Forrest (2003)