Developing an Employee Professional Growth Plan

Helping your employees develop professionally is part of your job as a manager. But, not all team members learn the same way or need the same training and coaching.

Learning styles are important, and as a manager, it becomes your responsibility to understand each of the learning styles of your employees. Some learn better from listening, others observing, and yet others can only learn by doing the actual task. The three primary types are known as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. 

At PSSworks our courses are designed to speak to all three of these types of learning. Our courses include video, companion guides to follow along while learning, worksheets to implement what the student is learning, and we have recently started including transcripts of our videos for those who would rather read it, then listen to it.

Developing a professional growth plan for your employees allows you to create a lasting impact in their learning as well as building a competitive and engaging overall workforce. 

So, what does an employee professional growth plan look like?

Here are 4-steps you can take to start to engage with your employees about their professional growth.

1. Start by doing a review of your employees, noting where you feel they excel and where you feel they could use some more training.
   
   Here’s where you might make notes about how employee X could use some additional training in learning to handle conflict within the team better. Or employee Y who leads the team meetings might enjoy learning more about how to run a productive meeting.
   

2. Next, have a conversation with your employee to learn where they feel their strong skills are and where they feel they could use some more support.
   
   It’s important to ensure that this conversation is held in a relaxed environment, so the employee feels free to be honest and ask for help where they need it. Remember, this is the time to discuss growth, not critique work performance.
   

3. Once you’ve identified where help is needed, draft a professional growth plan with your employee present. Discuss what training, education, and coaching you can offer to help them continue to grow.
   
   Some of the plan may include taking some online courses like the ones we offer at PSSworks. Let them know you’ll review the full plan, and get back to them within (timeframe) to discuss the action plan.
   

4. Put the action plan in place, set a consistent meeting schedule to review progress, and coach your employee as they proceed through the growth plan.

If you need help with a growth plan, hop over to our online learning center and download our Professional Growth Template for FREE! We’ll even show you how to use it!