Data analyst Saranya joined an IT firm straight out of college. On her very first project, she was identified as a high-potential recruit. In a year, she received two promotions. But all this left the young Saranya feeling lost. When her performance slid, her manager intervened to find out what was wrong. She shared her sense of confusion with him. That’s when he suggested they try individual development planning.
An individual development plan sample might point to a range of activities designed to help people progress in their careers or personal interests. Individual development plan examples for employees are used by individuals alone or together with their managers on the initiative of their organizations.
It’s important for anyone involved in individual development planning to be comfortable with the process. Individual development plan goals are all about improving the quality of work life for individuals and making organizations more productive.
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What Is An Individual Development Plan?
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How Planning Helps Organizations Flourish
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Individual Development Plan Examples
What Is An Individual Development Plan?
An individual development plan for employees helps them advance, work better and create partnerships with other team members. During the course of a career, there may be a need for new individual development planning along the way. An individual development plan is something that can be revised as goals change.
Let’s look at an individual development plan sample for a new school science teacher. To begin with, he outlined his objectives as:
- Purpose: To provide the best education to the students
- Activities: To develop skills in lesson planning
The individual development plan goals include:
- To study the topic for each semester in depth
- To take courses to add new skills to plan engaging lessons
- Organize a seminar with colleagues from other departments to discuss issues related to teamwork Take part in a time management course
This teacher created a large goal—to be a better teacher—but then broke it down into several achievable steps. In these individual development plan examples, the teacher then identified how long the steps would take and sought approval from his head of department for funding for the training program and seminars. Then, he put a timeline in place, all thanks to individual development planning.
How Planning Helps Organizations Flourish
Every organization has a set of core values. These are the reasons an organization exists, what its aims are and how it plans on achieving them. Everyone in an organization must accept these values and they must also contribute to the achievement of these goals. Individual development plan examples for employees can help people understand how their personal values relate to organizational goals and develop skills that help succeed within an organization.
The primary goal of individual development planning is to help people find their strengths and weaknesses and come up with ways to improve themselves. An individual development plan is a written blueprint that clearly communicates an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and development needs. It could be just for them or be shared with management. An individual development plan for employees can go a long way toward organizational success.
Individual Development Plan Examples
Let’s look at one of the individual development plan examples for leadership.
Gagan is a senior manager with three years’ experience. He’s well-known in the company for his ability to find opportunities and develop a solution that works best for the customer. Gagan will leave his post for new opportunities within the organization and potential new challenges as well. He’s passionate about working with customers and wants to develop his leadership skills.
By following individual development plan examples for leadership, he understood how to work on
his own strengths and weaknesses. Gagan has three items on his individual development action plan:
- Increasing customer satisfaction levels
- Improving the way the team communicates with customers
- Developing skills to be a successful leader in his new role
The individual development plan provides actionable goals for Gagan. They’re clearly defined, with easy-to-understand, concrete and specific actions.
Individual development plan examples are a great tool for grooming both team members who need a leg up and the achievers. With Harappa’s High Performing Leaders Program, senior talent will learn how to coach and mentor. They’ll deepen their understanding of collaboration, diversity and navigating ambiguity. Empower your teams with our blended curriculum, energized by our rockstar faculty. Transform the next generation of leadership today!
Explore Harappa Diaries to learn more about topics such as Importance of Individual Development Plan, Tips For Personal Development, What are the Personal Development Skills and How to set a Self-Development Goal that will help organizations tap into employee potential.