PDPs ought to assist your employees in reaching their goals for personal growth. They are crucial to a business in order to understand its workforce, prepare for succession, and plan for the future. Establishing well-thought-out personal development objectives for your employees will boost their performance and sense of workplace engagement. According to research, at least 73% of workers think that having the opportunity for professional development is essential to their happiness at work. Many people ultimately quit their jobs, citing a lack of personal growth as their cause.
The truth is that PDPs frequently turn into a tedious bureaucratic procedure that keeps employees from progressing in their careers. Ineffective PDPs sometimes exclude the section on personal development, which makes the plan more akin to a personal attack plan. The majority of PDPs arise once a year as a result of an employee performing subpar work or as a barrier to entrance for a new position. Development goals are frequently hurriedly created at the end of the year and contain items that don't support the employee's desired level of development.
We had conversations with a few of our coworkers regarding their prior employment experiences with PDPs. An acquaintance related her personal experience of a poorly prepared PDP serving as an obstacle to becoming a manager:
“I was put on a PDP as our CEO recognized I was a high performer. He asked my manager to do this so they could get me up to scratch to join the Senior Management Team. However, my PDP was written by my line manager and it included things like, dress more like a manager, stop being friendly with other members of the team — ultimately act more like a manager. These were obviously not attainable in any way! I realised it was all going wrong when I was sent for the management training and the guy leading the course looked at my PDP and said, ‘you don’t need to do any of these things, you need a new job.’ Ultimately my boss was trying to block me from progressing and was threatened by the relationship I had with our CEO.”
Instead of attempting to ascertain whatever abilities the employee wants to develop, some PDPs wind up turning into training exercises meant to produce a miniature version of your current manager. A coworker related how a PDP limited his creativity and prevented him from advancing in his job in the direction he desired:
“Often when managers create PDPs, they imply that the best way to be good at a job is to copy what they do. This is often ironic because you get non-technical people managing tech ni cal teams or vice versa. These PDPs try to mould you into a cor po rate idea of what they think you should be. Any creativity you have they don’t want. When you point out how something should be different, they get defensive. Some managers set personal plans to mould you into a mini theme, not understanding where you want to take your career.”
Unfortunately, some personal development plans turn into personal attack plans:
“In one of my jobs, my PDP was based on Myers Briggs which isn’t the right way to structure a work force. They made every employee— over 6000 people— do Myers Briggs and set objectives on the outcomes of your personality test. Moral of the story — don’t base objectives on psychological profiles of an employee.”
What should a good PDP look like?
Upskilling and improving employability while assisting the business in achieving its goals are the hallmarks of a strong PDP. PDPs ought to be a cooperative effort that benefits your organisation as well as the employee. It should only contain goals that you already have in mind and not include unachievable objectives.
However, personal development goals should be created and implemented in the same manner as other business goals in order to guarantee that PDPs are effective and functional. In order for personal development objectives to be successful, they must be measurable, flexible, accountable, and evaluable.
The four As
Aligned
Establishing a clear route and purpose for your employees can be achieved by coordinating their personal development goals with the company's aims. This guarantees that they are consistently striving for a goal that is pertinent to both the organisation and themselves.
Accountable
Employees must take responsibility for their own personal development objectives. Naturally, they should be held accountable for the company's goals if they are in line with them. An organisation's commitment to its people is demonstrated by a PDP, and employees' commitment to the organisation is demonstrated if they are held accountable for achieving their objectives. According to one study, if you commit to someone, you have a 65% chance of achieving your objective. Employees may be able to incorporate accountability into their own objectives in many ways. For example, they could implement a plan or structure, meet with their manager on a regular basis to catch up, or take smaller steps toward their objectives.
Agile
Objectives must be flexible and offer opportunity for manoeuvrability. Establishing short-term objectives that assist workers in reaching their ultimate goal allows them the flexibility to make changes to things that are no longer relevant. It provides employees with an opportunity to evaluate what is and isn't working, ensuring that they are consistently working toward their goals. Similar to business needs, personal development needs don't only arise once a year.
Assessable
In order to measure progress, goals should, at the very least, be measurable. Employees ought to be able to determine with accuracy how far they have to go to accomplish their objective. Instead of being "fluffy" and ambiguous, employees are forced to be specific about their desired outcome when they have measurable goals. Research has indicated that when individuals set specific and difficult goals, 90% of the time, higher performance results.
The "4 As" are not a comprehensive list, and managers and employees can create effective personal development goals in other ways. However, the most important thing to remember when creating a successful PDP is that personal development goals should be given the same priority as business goals. This might assist your managers in developing a strategy that empowers and fosters the growth of your employees.
Want to learn more about goal setting?
Watch out for the webinar "Addressing the Six Most Important Problems Regarding Objective Setting for Your Organization." This webinar aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of OKRs, agile, teamwork, collaboration, SMART, development, and individual objectives.