How to Create a Career Development Plan That Works
Employees want a clear pathway for realization of professional achievement. Career development plans serve as one such pathway.
To draw a meaningful career development plan, research should enlighten you on the different processes toward a certain career goal. Then break down that goal into small steps.
Idenitfy Goals
An employee career development plan is of great value in giving workers clear goals and the skills to get there. For example, an employee intending to become a department manager may include participation in leadership and management training classes; or should the employee be looking to set up a business, entrepreneurial management training courses may be added into the plan.
Any plan must include a gap analysis that outlines the differences between the skills the employee possesses and the skills required for dating desired outcomes. This will enable the employee to decide what areas to improve and set up the action plan to accomplish that.
After establishing career goals, an employee should formulate a timeline that includes all the milestones needed for accomplishing the established objectives. The goals should be specific and therefore measurable - e.g. in their quest to become department managers employees may require assertiveness or public speaking courses, whereas entrepreneurs needing to rise money for projects will require a budget on how much money, and when they will need it.
Identify Strengths
A career development plan starts with knowledge about yourself and being aware of your weaknesses. It is this self-awareness, combined with knowledge of the training that will aid you in meeting your goals, that can support making decisions related to training needs.
There are many tools available to help, like Clifton Strengths, that may indicate to you your qualities and skills that help you advance toward success in the workplace. Once identified, such strengths can further be compared with job roles to see which ones resonate with them the most.
Collect job descriptions for senior-level roles from a variety of industries to establish what qualifications are expected at that level, and then see how those job requirements match up with your skill set to find where gaps exist.
Involve Others
It is important to share this career development process with others and canvass support from mentors and coaches, who can provide invaluable insights and advice toward achieving your desired goals. Moreover, create a Career board as a support network throughout the implementations of your development plan; this, in return, may mean some stakeholder interest from your employer, since employers collaborating with their employees in career advancement typically grow a happier and more productive workforce.
Design the Timeline
Templates containing timelines provided the opportunity to delineate career milestones and achievements graphically. Arrows denote major career shifts, such as new jobs, internships, or promotions; text boxes describe particulars about each achievement, and color codes highlight critical areas along the pathway of one's work life. Sharing this timeline with mentors and peers can also prove beneficial.
Next, making a list will allow you to determine what needs to be done to achieve your goals. This will involve, to a certain degree, perusing job advertisements relevant to the jobs you aspire to obtain and matching their requirements against your own skillset.
Set Specific Goals
Professional development begins with setting very clear goals, followed by understanding how those goals would be achieved. Start mapping out your career goal and can use something like SMART or OKR techniques to break them down into specific objectives and tasks, which you could work toward for some time.
Short- and long-term goals may be set, but realistic targets should be put up that can comfortably be met within a certain amount of time- say, a year. After having some clear idea where you want to go, go ahead and break it down further into milestones- say: "This month, set up a 30-minute meeting with a senior manager to ask tips on how to level up in your role."
While working to reach your career goals, remember to give yourself some acknowledgment on the way. Send out shout-out emails to your coworkers or mention wins in team meetings; Celebrating milestones in an easy way will keep the employees fully committed to reaching their objectives.
Monitor your progress.
Having the expectations clarified can assist the employees in retaining their initial motivation, focus, and alignment toward achieving job aspirations. As such, milestones would be set where they track their progress toward establishing their career goals, such as completing leadership training programs or manager certification as they take real steps toward their career objectives.
Performance feedback should also be provided on an on-going basis. Support and direction may help nudge employees through obstacles when they are struggling while acknowledgement works well as a motivator for employees that are meeting expectations.
Goal-setting strategies like SMART are important to have managers set measurable and attainable goals for and with their direct reports. After this exercise, the direct report would start recognizing gaps in developmental needs, short-term targets, and resources to achieve those targets, financial or temporal being those for professional development being aspects, while social or relational include mentors' opportunities for career advancement here. At the very same time, one must check on progress periodically in order for employees to remain set on course through to achieving their career goals.
