A part of performance management that sometimes gets forgotten is development planning. Too often managers regard this as low priority, and don’t see the benefits of setting development plans with their team, and supporting them to achieve this, when they are so busy with other things.
A good development plan should look at where an employee wants to be down the line, (this could be in 6 months or 10 years) and setting out steps to be taken and goals to be achieved to make this a reality. This could include shadowing others at their organisation, taking on more responsibility, training either internally or externally and so on.
So, why should all managers be setting and supporting these plans with their employees? There are many reasons all managers should be encouraging and supporting development within their team, the key ones being:
To boost performance
If your people are just trundling along in their job without a clear view of what they’re working towards in their career they may become unmotivated. Giving each member of your team an idea of what their future within the organisation could look like, and a path they can follow to get there, will give them a goal to work towards, making their day to day activity a part of their bigger career goals.
Remember your employees are people with goals and aspirations, it’s unlikely they will want to stay in the same position forever without progressing in some way. Whether the motivation for them is more money, more responsibility or doing something they feel better aligns to their strengths, pretty much everyone has a drive in them to climb the ladder, and giving them that opportunity will likely lead to happier and more engaged employees.
To reduce resignations
If people can’t see a future at their current organisation, there is a higher probability that they’ll leave to go somewhere else. Even if you think their progression opportunities are obvious, some people might not know what their next career steps would be.
This means that you could be losing talented employees simply because you haven’t discussed with them their future at your organisation. It also means that you’ll have to go through the expensive and time consuming process of filling their role and onboarding a new staff member!
Because you’re investing in your best assets
As we just mentioned, hiring and onboarding new staff members is costly, it’s often more cost efficient to promote from within. This also means that the person you’re putting in a role already has knowledge of your organisation, customers / clients, values, and products / services you provide, so you won’t need to spend lots of time getting them up to speed.
So why wouldn’t you give a current employee a chance to progress in their career instead of hiring in someone new? And with development plans in place you’ll be able to identify those employees who would be interested in the role, and if you and the employee have been following the steps you’ve laid out, you should be able to identify who is ready for a promotion.
Furthermore development is a way of upskilling your employees. Many organisations complain about skill gaps, but then don’t take the time to invest in upskilling their current workers, instead wanting to only hire people with lots of experience and / or qualifications.
This could be a problem if there is a shortage of people with the experience / qualifications you are looking for, especially with the talent shortage many organisations have been experiencing. It also means you are overlooking your people with a great work ethic and ability to learn because they don’t currently have what you’re looking for, but often this can be rectified with the right training!
Using a performance management tool like Clear Review allows managers to set development goals and have regular development conversations with their employees, tracking the progress of this in the system to be reviewed when needed.
If you’d like to find out more about development plans, book a free demo with us today, and start say YES to engaged and productive employees.