Professional development plans (or PDPs) are essential in retaining employees and developing team spirit in both the corporate and academic worlds. Although more popular in elementary and high school education, their importance in the corporate workplace and academia has long been clear.
Why PDPs? PDP is especially crucial considering the high rates of disillusionment and career dissatisfaction that are being experienced in both academia and the corporate world. If left unchecked, this worker dissatisfaction may lead to poor performance and high rates of turnover.
Private firms as well as HEIs and university departments should prioritize the personal and professional development of their academic professional to attract the best talent, retain them for longer, and achieve optimal results. A well-defined and actionable professional development plan (PDP) is vital to achieving this.
Plus, there are a number of rapid and exciting developments occurring regarding the future of work and the incorporation of AR and VR in the modern workplace. To keep on top of these developments, employers should consider the role of PDPs in upskilling their workforce.
In this article, we discuss what a professional development plan is and how it can be properly used to attract, retain, and improve staff well-being and productivity.
What Is a Professional Development Plan?
A professional development plan (PDP) is a formal document that sets out properly defined career goals for an employee over a particular timeframe and the practical objectives, such as specific aptitude training, required to accomplish them. If properly carried out, PDPs have the power to keep employees motivated and contribute to the high performance of their HEIs or departments.
PDPs can also be called career development programs/plans or employee development programs/plans. They are tools used to first determine the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of workers in terms of skills and interests. This information is then used to determine how or where the employee can fit in the long-term values and goals of the company or institution.
PDPs signal that employers or institutions are willing to invest in their employees and value them. This sense of appreciation and concern for their long-term career growth and development may increase the staff’s sense of morale and help reduce the high levels of toxicity and that feeling of being a mere cog in a wheel that can be all too common in the world of academia.
In planning PDPs, factors such as the skills and interests of the employee should first be considered. After this, employers should assess how their long-term goals and needs match employees’ competencies, career interests, and ambitions.
Although designed as a long-term program, a PDP should not be set in stone and should be accommodating enough to incorporate changing circumstances.
The need for a Professional Development Plan
Professional development plans are needed both in the modern workplace and the world of academia because of the fractured nature of work. Before, both in academia and modern industry, one only had to rely on a single company or job to develop a career or tenure that one could hang onto until retirement.
Today, things have changed dramatically. Outside academia, being wedded to one company for life or even for a five-year stint was seen as the norm to enhance one’s career. Studies even show that the best way to increase your wages is by constantly changing jobs. In academia, the high number of qualifying PhDs means that there is intense competition for both positions and funding.
This trend, in addition to the increasingly toxic culture that has been reported in academia, has led to a trend of academics seeking work beyond the hallowed walls of educational institutions. The world of academia could suffer severely from this brain drain, with the most talented academics going to private industry instead.
A professional career development plan can help increase the likelihood of promising researchers being retained by HEIs or research institutions.
Problems Unique to Creating PDPs in Academia
PDPs might face unique challenges in academia compared to private companies operating in a free market economy. Criteria used to measure progress in academia include the number of papers published in journals, the ability to get grant funding, and so on.
Such criteria can be quite arbitrary. The arbitrary nature of these standards might make a PDP difficult to implement. PDPs are meant to set out long-term goals for specific individuals and employees. It would be difficult to plan for the long term for standards that are difficult to tabulate, measure, or set objectives according to.
This differs markedly from the way things work in the private market. There, progress is measured according to market performance, such as sales, revenue, and market share. These benchmarks are much less random and haphazard than the arbitrary standards used in academia.
In academia, PDPs can also be used by academic writing coaches to help academics make progress in their writing.
The Benefits of Professional Development Plans
PDPs have a number of benefits for employees, research institutions, and firms. This is because PDPs can help make employees feel appreciated and that they are getting something back besides a mere salary or hitting funding or research targets.
As a result, they will be motivated to give their best, which will ultimately increase institutional performance. The benefits of PDP include:
Attracting high-caliber employees. Studies have shown that organizations or research institutions with well-developed PDPs see increased interest from potential employees during recruitment.
Increasing employee morale and performance. Employees who feel that their institution is investing in them will feel good about coming to work and giving their all. This in turn would lead to better productivity and performance.
Reducing employee turnover rates. Today, academic institutions suffer from high employee turnover and disillusionment borne from the fact that employees feel that companies no longer invest enough in them. PDPs show that your company cares and can motivate employees to remain long-term because of the development goals laid out for them.
Increasing institutional loyalty. A department or institution operating in an industry with high competition can give itself an edge with PDPs. A PDP might just be what you need to ensure that your employees are not tempted to cross to the side of your competitors.
Improving long-term company performance. Employees or researchers with high morale and increased productivity and who feel a sense of loyalty to their firms will ensure that the institution benefits from impressive long-term performance.
How to build professional development plans for employees
A good professional development plan begins with a proper assessment of where your employees are in terms of skills and professional competencies. Then, it lays out a plan and timeline to achieve long-term career goals and the specific objective to attain them.
Steps In a Professional Development Plan
The steps in a professional development plan include:
1. Assessment
2. Goal setting
3. Establishing objectives
4. Evaluating progress
The table below provides a brief summary of the steps involved in creating a proper professional development plan.
Assessment
This involves determining where employees are in terms of their skills, deficiencies, and potential, as well as their future career development goals. Based on the results of the assessment, the PDP goals will be set or established.
The questions that you as an employer should be asking during this stage of the PDPare things like:
What are the strengths and weaknesses of this employee?
How can these strengths be utilized to forward the company’s long-term objectives?
What are their weaknesses?
How can these weaknesses be resolved to make the employee a more productive member of the organization?
Assessment normally occurs in two steps:
1. Self-assessment. This involves the staff member evaluating themselves. This could include personality tests, such as the Big Five and the DISC personality test. The staff member is also given an opportunity to evaluate their own skill levels, competency, and interests.
2. Independent Assessment. In this stage, a manager or supervisor evaluates the employee. To do so, they take into account factors such as:
The employee’s own individual assessment
Their own independent workplace observations
The recorded performance of the employee
Student reviews
This evaluation aims to identify both the strong and weak points of an employee, as well as areas in which they could improve. Following this step, an appropriate action plan can be drawn up. During this process, particular care should be taken to consider the career interest and ambitions of the worker. Evaluators should consider the following:
The current strengths of the worker in terms of skills and competencies
The worker’s long-term career goals
The worker’s interests and ambitions
The worker’s attitude towards the work or job.
The main point of the phase in the PDP process is for managers, supervisors, or department heads to determine just how aligned the researcher or employee is with the long-term values and careers of the department or organization. This knowledge is necessary to move forward to the next stage of the employee career development plan.
Goal Setting
In this stage, goals are set for individual staff members. These goals should be fine-tuned to match the employee’s temperament, skills, interests, and attitudes, as well as the long-term goals of the organization or research institution.
The questions that should be considered during this stage include things such as:
How well does the staff member fit the requirements for this long-term goal in terms of temperament?
Are these goals too big for the individual or should be shared with others?
Are these goals too small and does the employee require a more ambitious challenge?
How achievable is this goal realistically?
What measures are required to ensure that this goal or set of goals is ultimately achieved?
Goals are meant to be long-term and broad. For example, an organizational goal could be to have at least 30% of the market share for a certain product within five years. In academics, a goal could be to attain a certain number of distinguished professors within your department, have a specific number of papers published in high-end journals, or attain a certain value of grant funding.
The key to making such goals attainable is by setting actionable and measurable objectives to ensure that they are being achieved.
Establishing Objectives
Objectives can be defined as the actionable units that make up a long-term goal. Therefore, in order for a goal to be achieved, the objectives should be short-term, practical, specific, and measurable. Developing proper objectives can be achieved by following SMART principles.
SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time. The variables that go into SMART are explained here:
1. Specificity. Objectives have to be specific. The questions that need to be considered include: What do you need to be accomplished? Why is it important? What are the limits in terms of resources being faced?
2. Measurability. This means gauging the progress being made. For example, in the initial assessment, self and independent evaluations of the employee are carried out to determine their skill levels among other things.
After the PDP goes into action, regular checks to measure progress should be made. For example, if a company is interested in capturing 30% of the market share for a specific product within 5 years, then they should be able to have a specific projection of how much market share should be captured in Year 1 or even by the third quarter of Year 1 to achieve that ultimate five-year goal.
Likewise, if a department expects a certain number of papers to be published, they should have in place a system that could measure the progress and preparation required at various stages to achieve this goal.
3. Attainability. This is important as it focuses on ensuring that realistic expectations are laid out. For example, if the staff are not sufficiently trained or experienced for the job, they might not be able to achieve either goals or objectives.
4. Relevance. Supervisors, managers, and department heads should make sure that the objectives that they set are relevant to the ultimate goals set. Workshops or training approved or established should genuinely improve the skill set of employees. After all, resources are limited and should be allocated efficiently.
5. Timeframe. This is also related to measurability. Part of measuring results means that specific aims are met within a specified time period. Although it would be best to complete tasks or objectives within the original timeframe set, allowance should be made for flexibility to meet changing circumstances.
Evaluating Progress
Evaluations are a big part of ensuring that professional development plans are successful. They are necessary to ensure that things are going to plan. If necessary, contingency plans should be followed if the current plan is not achieving the expected results.
In addition, the world is often unpredictable. events beyond the control of the institution may necessitate changing your strategy or established roadmap. This has been made all the more obvious recently in the wake of Covid-19.
Therefore, properly thought-out career development plans should have built into it probably one or more contingency plans ready to be launched into action in the event of disruptions or changes in circumstances.
Professional Development Plans and the Future of Work
The world of work is rapidly changing and evolving in terms of new developments such as inclusivity and the adoption of AR and VR in the workplace. Employers and supervisors should consider the role that PDPs can play in upskilling workers to prepare them for these new developments.
Getting Ready for AR and VR. Professional development plans can be used to get employees up-to-date on how to use the newest or latest AR and VR technology in their work. AR and VR have also shown much promise in improving the skills of workers. Some studies have shown that workers trained using AR and VR were able to remember what they learned for longer and did a better job of applying it in practice.
Therefore, incorporating upskilling based on AR and VR may represent an avenue through which your firm can pursue a competitive advantage.
Inclusivity training. Inclusivity is becoming all the more important considering the increasingly flattened nature of the labor market. Because of the wonders of remote work, organizations may have people of different ethnic backgrounds working in every corner of the globe for them.
In such environments, respect for differences and empathy are crucial. It has been reported that an inclusive workforce can lead to better decision-making and improved organizational performance.
Therefore, you should prioritize incorporating specific inclusivity training in your PDPs to enjoy such advantages. It should also be borne in mind that Generation Z is on the verge of entering the world of work. They have been described as a generation willing to vote with their feet. They are willing to walk away from organizations that do not represent their inclusive values.
Therefore, to benefit from the new energy and the values that this potential market represents, inclusivity training should also be included in PDPs.
PDPs Give Staff a Sense of Value and Rootedness
Professional development plans are essential in a rapidly changing workplace, where workers are losing any sense of loyalty to their organizations. They are needed both in academia and the corporate world. These two areas differ markedly from each other, and PDPs should be established considering the specific nature of either of these industries.
In the corporate world, goals and objectives can be set according to profit-driven agendas, whereas in academia, standards and criteria can be much more nebulous. Therefore, there should be extra focus on what exactly are the values and goals of academic institutions and how they can be calibrated to suit the interests, skills, and ambitions of their various staff members.
PDPs if properly crafted can help foster a sense of being valued and appreciated by institutions and organizations among employees. This will go a long way in reducing the sense of alienation and lack of rootedness, which has come to characterize the modern workplace.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024). Professional Development Plans. |
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