Bridging the Skills Gap: 7 Steps To An Employee Development Plan That Works

There’s an urgent need for employee development plans. Clear and present skills gaps are challenging companies worldwide. 

This has global implications. By 2030, worldwide markets are expected to experience a massive skills gap that could result in an $8.5 trillion in potential revenue loss. The struggle is real. 64% of L&D professionals say reskilling the current workforce to fill skills gaps is now a top priority.

Stats like these show that we needed to increase employee skills in our organization's last decade. But with time travel off the table, the best way to upskill ewmployees from within will be by leveraging collaborative learning and employee development plans.

Today, we will look at employee development plans through the lens of collaborative learning. We will highlight its concrete benefits to organizations and outline the seven key steps to creating a successful employee development plan.

First up, what exactly is employee development?

What is employee development?

Employee development is all about helping your team grow their skills and knowledge so they're ready for whatever their jobs throw at them—now and in the future. 

At its core, employee development is a strategic investment. You're also preparing your business to meet future challenges head-on. 

Consider a tech company, for example. New programming languages and technologies emerge all the time. If a development team isn't continually learning, the company could fall behind its competitors. Or think about customer service—ways to engage customers are always changing, so teams need ongoing training to stay on top of trends.

What is an employee development plan?

An employee development plan outlines the path an individual employee needs to follow to grow their skills and career within your organization.

These individualized action plans typically include an employee’s short- and long-term goals.  This could be anything from earning a new certification, mastering new skills, or stepping into a higher role.  

But what is a development plan for an employee beyond just a list of goals? It includes measurable metrics to track progress, a timeline highlighting significant milestones, and a schedule for regular check-ins on advancement. 

Providing a well-planned employee development plan offers clear direction by highlighting career goals and opportunities for employees to upskill.  Old-school plans were all about the job description. Today, it's different. It's about skills. With the right skills, you can do your current job better and prepare for new ones. Rather than sticking to generic role-focused training, there's a growing emphasis on honing in-demand skills. Employees grow. Companies succeed. It's a win-win.

To make this shift, L&D leaders and organizations have to change how they think about training.

How employee development plans benefit your business

Introducing employee development plans has numerous benefits. They attract fresh talent, help achieve business goals, and increase profitability. 

Let’s highlight four main advantages that organizations with employee development plans have over companies who do not:

Attract top talent: When a company implements employee development plans, it demonstrates a willingness to invest in the professional growth of its employees. They'll apply because they know you're all about leveling up their career.

Impact employee engagement: When your team feels valued—it increases their confidence in their job performance. When you tailor employee development plans to help them get better at what they do, their job satisfaction skyrockets. They're more into their work because they see you're invested in their success. 

Improve employee performance: Assisting employees in improving their skills and achieving growth opportunities can help them excel in their current positions. It can also prepare them for future roles, ultimately leading to improved performance. 

Increase employee retention: An employee development plan indicates that an organization offers opportunities for professional growth. It is where employees can learn new skills without switching to a different company.

Now, you might wonder, "Isn't focusing on employee development expensive?" Well, what's truly expensive is not developing your employees. 

The cost of turnover, hiring, and getting new employees up to speed often outweighs the investment in development.

Types of employee development plans

IEmployee development plans are essential for helping your team grow and succeed. Each type serves a different purpose, depending on what you and your team are looking to achieve. 

Here's a look at the main types you might consider.

Employee Career Development Plan

An employee career development plan or employee growth plan focuses on an individual's career goals within the company. It outlines the steps needed to achieve these goals, whether moving up the ladder or switching departments. It helps each employee see a clear path forward in their career.

Leadership Skills Development Plan

A leadership skill development plan covers all the important skills a good leader needs, like communicating effectively, making decisions, and solving problems. The goal is to prepare employees to take on leadership positions in the future.

Employee Skill Development Plan

When there are specific skills that employees need to improve or learn, an employee skill development plan comes into play. It's all about identifying the skills gaps and setting up a plan to address them. 

This could also include enhancing soft skills like negotiation, communication, etc.

Employee Performance Development Plan

The employee performance development plan boosts employee performance in their current role. It sets specific goals, tracks progress, and provides feedback along the way. In other words, it helps employees go from doing a good job to doing a great job.

Cross-Functional Employee Development Plan

A cross-functional employee development plan encourages employees to learn about different parts of the company. It can involve temporary assignments in other departments or shadowing colleagues in different roles. 

The aim is to broaden employees' understanding of the business and strengthen collaboration across different teams.

How to create a development plan for employees: 7 key steps

1.  Standardize the structure of your employee development plan

To help illustrate how employee growth plans typically look, here’s a brief example of how you can structure your employee development model. Start by identifying the employee’s goals:

• Describe the employee’s career aspirations.
• Identify three long-term professional goals.
• Identify three short-term professional goals.
• Identify two to three activities, with resources and a deadline, that will help the employee achieve these goals.

Next, identify the tasks in their current role that contribute to their long-term goals and describe the actions needed to make sure these occur more frequently. The plan should explain the steps required to minimize, remove, or delegate tasks that aren't contributing to the long-term goals.

Next, have your employees list any additional skills, knowledge, or experience they would like to acquire to enhance their current or future roles. It is also important to establish regular progress checkpoints, which we’ll get into shortly. 

Check out these employee training templates and checklists for more inspiration on how to structure your employee development plans.

2. Carry out a skills gap analysis

To make sure you prioritize the right skills in your upskilling initiatives and employee development process, you will need skills gap analysis.

It's a way to see the gap between what skills your team has now and what they need to knock their jobs out of the park.  For companies that are growing fast, this is crucial. It's way more effective than just talking one-on-one with each employee to figure out their skill levels. 

Using a bottom-up, collaborative learning platform like 360Learning, your employees can leverage the Learning Needs tool to directly declare and upvote the skills they actually want to learn. This means your training plans hit the mark by focusing on the skills that are truly in demand.   

3. Engage employees to understand what career growth means to them

A crucial aspect of an employee growth plan is its customization for each employee. 

It is important to involve the employee in the process from the beginning since each employee may have different career goals. While some may strive to excel in their current role, others aspire to become managers.

When designing a career development plan, it's important to consider their career aspirations in the context of their personal lives. For instance, a new employee may still need clarification about their career path. So, their development needs will differ from those of someone more experienced and looking for their next promotion. 

Engaging with employees in this stage is about discussing how they envision their careers in the next 6 to 24 months. 

4. Align L&D initiatives with greater business goals to gestakeholder buy-in

To move forward with designing and implementing impactful employee development plans, it's important to keep your company's larger goals and objectives in perspective.

Specifically, L&D and talent development teams need to:

• Determine your organization’s core business goals. You can collaborate with the C-suite or other stakeholders to get their input.
• Make these company goals SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
• Identify the organizational impact and check that closing the skills gap will contribute to the company's goals. 

To prove the impact of employee development plans on the business, analyze and compare learner outcomes to changes in job performance. For example, effective sales enablement training that visibly improves sales team performance can drive an increase in company revenue shortly thereafter.

To get executive buy-in on L&D, there are several data-based models to help you calculate training ROI. Proving the impact of your employee development plans with numbers, not just anecdotes, can help you preserve the L&D budget in uncertain times - or even secure more budget for the future. 

5. Create an action plan to lay out how employees can achieve their career goals

Next, you want to empower employees to have ownership over their employee development plan. 

To keep career growth on a consistent path, schedule regular meetings  between employees and their managers. These can be monthly, quarterly, or whatever works best, considering how busy everyone is and the pace at which you want to see growth. 

To further make sure the process is smooth, it's important to establish clear expectations for both managers and employees. Managers play a key role here. They're the ones offering personalized support through guidance, feedback, and the right resources. Plus, they help keep everyone on track with a tailored action plan. 

The action plan should cover the following:

• Short-term goals: Attainable goals to be achieved in two weeks to six months, including what the employee thinks they need to meet their long-term goal.
• Long-term goals: Where the employees see themselves in the company in the next year and what they need to achieve to get there. 

During one-on-one meetings, bringing up the action plan can give everyone a clearer picture of their career. It's a chance to see progress and figure out how managers can support moving towards short- and long-term goals. 

6. Give employees the learning experiences they need to succeed

For your employees to shine in their roles and reach their career peaks, they need the right kind of training programs and accessible knowledge. 

First, determine which learning opportunities and training methods will steer your employees toward the goals outlined in their action plan. 

Here are some learning solutions you can implement in your employee development training:

• Collaborative learning
• Mentoring or coaching
• Seminars and webinars
• eLearning, such as videos, podcasts, or quizzes

360Learning's collaborative learning platform enables L&D teams to work with internal subject-matter experts to create engaging, hyper-relevant training content. It also lets them capture institutional knowledge for streamlined internal movement.

Beyond interactive and engaging learning, tracking the employees' progress through their training development plan is crucial, which leads us to the next step. 

7. Track employee performance results and adjust their action plan accordingly

So, your team's have their goals set, and they're working hard to hit them. That's great! But you've got to keep an eye on how they're doing. This means checking in on their progress towards their growth plan's short-term and long-term targets.

Figure out if the way you're helping them grow is actually working.

Have a sit-down with your team members every month. This is a time to look over their progress together. You might find that some parts of their employee development plan need a little tweak here and there. 

And, this is also the perfect chance to give them a high-five for what they've accomplished and chat about what's next on their career horizon.

Example of Development Plans for Employees

Example 1: Advancing into Leadership Midway Through a Customer Service Career

Maria's been the go-to customer service pro for five years, shining bright at her job. Her boss sees she's got the spark for leading a team but needs the know-how. Together, they map out a learning journey with leadership workshops and shadowing opportunities. 

She becomes part of a leadership learning group within the company, where current leaders share insights and strategies. 

Through group discussions and team-based problem-solving exercises, Maria quickly picks up the essentials of effective leadership. 

Example 2: Transitioning to Project Management

IT specialist Alex is on a mission to become a project manager. His development plan includes a strong component of collaborative learning. He participates in cross-functional project teams, absorbing knowledge from each department's workflow and challenges. 

Regular group feedback sessions provide him with diverse perspectives on managing projects effectively. This collective learning journey equips Alex with a rounded understanding of project management

Example 3: Achieving Sales Leadership in Career Advancement

Liam is an ambitious sales associate who aims for the regional sales manager role. His growth plan integrates collaborative learning by involving him in strategy sessions with the sales team. 

Together, they analyze market trends, brainstorm on sales tactics, and share successful case studies. 

Employee development solutions: collaborative learning

Social learning is an important component of engaging and effective employee development plans. 

Sure, bringing in outside experts and using ready-made lessons can seem like a quick fix to train your team. But did you know 64% of employees think learning from their coworkers is the best way to pick up new skills? 

Collaborative learning supports this by enabling employees to declare their own learning needs. It lets the experts in your company make courses that are just right for what your team needs. This way, everyone gets to share what they know best, spreading valuable skills and knowledge across your organization.

The 360Learning platform is equipped with powerful LMS automation, collaborative learning Academies, tools to create a top-notch learner experience, and an AI-powered Skills ontology to activate skills-based learning. Employees upskill, customers learn, and partners are trained—all from one place.

Our end-to-end learning platform enables your organization to empower and retain top talent by advancing their career development goals, and always equips your employees with the necessary skills to achieve their best performance and productivity.