3 in 4 HR professionals report that it has been very difficult to find qualified individuals with the new skills they need, and overall 50% say they have had difficulty retaining full-time employees in the last 12 months.
With the wave of changes going on, and retention becoming harder than ever, the best course of action you take as leaders is to use internal talent to the best possible extent.
While you’re deftly crafted initiatives that suit different learning styles and employee personas, you need an eclectic and effective mix of employee development plans to tend to the entire workforce.
This blog will give you 20 Employee development plan ideas that you can implement, to empower your employees, and watch them take ownership of their growth and development in your organization.
Types of Employee Development Plans
| Employee development plan | Significance |
| Individual Development Plan (IDP) | Personal and career growth tailored to the individual. Can be created for every employee, to create unique growth plans. |
| Leadership Development Plan | Developing leadership skills and preparing for leadership roles. Created for high-potential employees or those in line for leadership roles. |
| Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) | Addressing specific performance issues to bring employees up to standard. Created for employees who are underperforming and need targeted improvement. |
| Skill Development Plan | Building specific technical or professional skills. Created for employees needing to acquire or upgrade technical skills related to their role. |
Innovative employee development plan examples
1. Reverse mentoring programs
| Patrice Gordon, Author, Speaker, and Reverse Mentoring Expert says, “There’s a huge benefit to flipping the switch and allowing the novice to teach the master. Reverse mentoring could be an antidote to the tunnel vision that can set in when one rises the ranks to become a leader.” |
Mentoring teaches leadership skills, instils a sense of sense worth, and is a generous gesture from the mentor. But, it doesn’t always have to be unilateral.
Anyone looking to grow in a leadership role seeks to give back to others but also needs to be willing to take or learn from the right people, even if they’re younger or less experienced in a field than them. That’s exactly what reverse mentoring is.
The workforce consists of 5 generations of employees now, and there’s a big gap between people and their leaders.
When your employees rise the ranks, they often get so focused on the strategy, and the vision of the organization, that they lose the pulse of the workforce, and what people feel. Reverse mentoring, where a younger employee counsels the emerging leader on matters they want to broaden their knowledge on, is an amazing way to leaders rooted to the core of the company while fueling their growth.
There are a few important things to take care of, in reverse mentoring programs. Make your match thoughtfully.
Find someone who has a pulse on the key spokespeople in your company, someone who knows you and your teams well.
Ensure the reverse mentor is not a direct report or a part of the leader’s team, so their interactions are candid.
For example, you can team up an engineering leader with an associate in marketing, or a product expert with someone in customer care, etc.
Beware of role reversion – sometimes the senior employee tends to take over the discussion and give career advice. It’s better to set ground rules to avoid this issue.
About 63% of organizations plan to support a formal or informal mentoring program in 2024. The right implementation can be tremendously helpful to emerging leaders and shape them well.
2. Cross-functional projects and side ventures
Employees with leadership potential are good performers and also have the skills and the fortitude to learn higher-order work and take on bigger challenges.
They have the capability to learn, be resilient, and ace things that are beyond their scope now. To broaden the candidate’s skills, give them assignments that appeal to their skill set, but in a context that isn’t too familiar to them.
For example, if a marketing associate is showing potential in conflict resolution, give them a project in customer service. Or, if a software developer shows potential in breaking down and leveraging social media trends, give them a chance to do it.
This is how they form working relationships with people out of their comfort zone, and push themselves to get results for the team.
This is an important skill for a leader, and these cross-functional projects set the perfect stage for it.
3. Employee innovation programs
Sometimes the best, and breakthrough ideas don’t come from leaders or external consultants. The most ingenious ideas sometimes come from grassroots-level employees.
When their suggestions are considered, tested, and validated, they can open up new opportunities or markets for the business.
To bring out the best in your employees, set up a contest, or a program where every department, or every employee (depending on the employee headcount) has to come up with one innovative idea to reduce waste, improve efficiency, or bring down costs, implement it and show how their idea benefits the company.
The TATA Titan Group does this well. The jewelry division of the Titan group, Titan Tanishq conducts a yearly event to bring out hidden talent in employees through an event called Impact Mela.
It’s an exhibition where employees display an innovative product, or solution they discovered, or invented to simplify their work or any other process in the company.
It can be as simple as discovering a new methodology to stop water from dripping continuously from the water cooler, thus saving thousands of rupees for the manufacturing plant, or a different, simpler method to clean metal without using power, but giving the same accuracy time and time again.
This exhibition is an excellent way to bring out employee creativity, and innovation, and fire up their zeal to become a leader.
4. Job rotation within the internal talent marketplace
When an employee works at different levels and capacities within the same workplace, they get to know the workplace dynamics better, help troubleshoot, and master their function thoroughly.
To make this process equitable, use internal talent marketplaces. Studies say only 1 in 4 organizations use an internal talent marketplace. If you have a person taking a sabbatical or need a quick replacement due to any reason, post the job on the marketplace, and have anyone with the required skill set apply for the interview.
Hiring from within almost always trumps hiring externally.
If you can rotate employees from the same function to take up the vacancy, there’s nothing better than that.
For example, if there’s an immediate opening for a copywriter, and your SEO specialist shows credibility to write well, have them appear for the screening.
Job rotation improves credibility for employees, and helps mobilize internal talent. Opportunities for growth within the workspace represent the single biggest factor in employees’ overall mental wellbeing, surpassing even job security.
5. Experiential learning programs for leadership development
Teamwork, helping tendency, ability to lead, and thinking on one’s feet are all essential characteristics of a leader.
This is best brought out in real-life dangerous situations where the stakes are high. If you want to spot true leaders in your workforce, take them to an experiential training camp, where they indulge in adventurous activities as a team.
It brings out many hidden traits, that you can fuel later on. It’s also an amazing exercise for those on track to be leaders and gives them a taste of the strengths and weaknesses they need to work on.
Apart from leaders, you can also get a glimpse of individual contributors who, when push comes to shove, will take one for the team.
You’ll also see whom the team naturally trusts and gravitates toward when put in a tough spot. This person is a natural leader and a potential candidate for you to develop.
6. Stretch assignments to test new skill acquisition
Apart from cross-functional projects, and job rotation, if you want an employee to truly go out of their comfort zone, challenge themselves, and do something extraordinary, give them stretch assignments.
Going beyond the job description, for a short period of time, and for an incentive at the end is what stretch assignments are about.
Offering an incentive, in terms of a bonus, a flexible schedule, a promotion in the next review, or putting on track for leadership positions makes the individual deliver to the best of their potential.
Stretch assignments, for example, can be of different kinds – requiring an employee to do extensive market research, competitive research, product research, leading an R&D initiative for a particular high-value product, and trusting them to come up with a workable prototype.
It can require them to set up and run an international division or branch of a business. It can be asking them to spearhead a digital transformation initiative in the company, or courting and bringing in a high-ticket client (if that isn’t in their JD).
7. Coaching with external expert coaches
Climbing up the corporate ladder isn’t the same for everyone. Individual contributors who are masters in their line of work often find it incredibly hard to manage people when they get promoted.
They may be unable to confront the people whom they worked side by side with until recently, an inability to set strict boundaries and manage without seeming too bossy.
These are behaviors that a manager needs to have, regardless of their other skills. If the employee on the leadership track lacks these essential soft skills, they will find it hard to cope.
One of the ways to develop them is to sponsor a coaching program with one of the best coaches in the industry to help them become a well-rounded manager.
8. Lunch and learn sessions
Lunch and Learn sessions are informal training or informational meetings that typically take place during lunch hours at the workplace.
These sessions are designed to provide employees with an opportunity to learn new skills, gain knowledge, or discuss various topics in a relaxed setting while enjoying a meal.
These are held during lunch breaks, often lasting between 30 minutes to an hour. Cover a wide range of subjects, from professional development and industry trends to health and wellness, personal finance, or even hobbies.
Employees are usually invited to attend on a voluntary basis, creating a low-pressure environment. Since they take place during regular work hours and often involve minimal expenses (like providing lunch), they are a cost-effective way for organizations to invest in employee development.
9. Interactive internal knowledge-sharing forums
Progressive companies know succession planning and continuous leadership development are possible only when people in the same or extended teams share their knowledge and experience with each other.
We’re seeing many organizations come up with internal podcasts, knowledge bases, and internal research reports based on each department’s experience with the market that helps each other do their work better.
These knowledge-sharing systems are super-important to creating a culture of learning and boosting each other – which lies at the crux of leadership development.
Leaders can gather input from across the organization to inform strategic decisions, fostering a sense of ownership and involvement among employees.
10. AR/VR immersive learning
Upskilling and reskilling are top priorities for 53% of organizations worldwide in 2024 and for the next few years. AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) immersive learning technologies offer innovative and effective ways to achieve this goal right.
These technologies create highly engaging, interactive, and realistic learning environments that can significantly improve the learning experience and outcomes for employees.
They allow employees to actively participate in learning experiences rather than passively consuming information.
This interactivity increases engagement and helps in better retention of knowledge. Employees can practice tasks and scenarios in a safe, controlled virtual environment without the risk of real-world consequences.
This is particularly valuable in high-risk industries like healthcare, manufacturing, or aviation.
Once developed, AR/VR training modules can be scaled across large organizations without the need for additional physical resources or repeated instructor-led sessions.
11. Workathons or hackathons – contests on completing distinguished projects
When Mark Zuckerberg wanted to recruit the best talent in his founding team to build Facebook from the ground up, he conducted workathons – a fun competition where participants work on a task with a huge goal and a stringent timeframe, with other employees cheering them on.
Whoever completed it first got the spot for an internship on Zuckerberg’s team. These contests bring out the competitive nature among employees and get them to break free of their limits, learn extensively, practice, train, and deliver the best on the day of the event.
You can apply this concept of workathons to any concept, or context and get fruitful results, in terms of engagement, employee delight, and development.
This makes employees push their limits. Also, seeing other employees win accolades or special incentives is a huge motivation for others to follow suit and take part in such events, thereby driving collective development.
12. New idea incubation programs
Geniuses can come from anywhere, and when they do, you do your best to make use of their ideas. Many organizations encourage the entrepreneurial drive their star employees have.
If an employee has an out-of-the-box idea that is directly relevant or complementary to the business vision, the organization provides mentorship, resources, and anything else required to have the employee develop the idea from scratch and get it to fruition, just like venture capitalists do.
Progressive organizations encourage employees to be entrepreneurs themselves, in their chosen field, and invest in their growth. If the employee runs the new venture well, they may also consider having the venture as a separate entity with the employee running it with a team of their own.
This kind of reception for employee’s brilliant ideas only breeds more fantastic ideas.
People who previously thought they were of no consequence in the company now start vocalizing their ideas and contributing to the growth of the company. This brings us to our next point.
13. Employee suggestion programs and employee circles
Suggestion programs are a common practice in many companies, but most of them aren’t effective. Manufacturing companies that follow lean practices do it religiously, and it benefits them in improving their throughput process.
There are employee circles (cross-functional teams) that gather together every quarter or half-year, to brainstorm suggestions to make the workplace, or their department function better.
Subsequent to these meetings, they also run an anonymous suggestion scheme, or quarterly surveys to gauge employee pulse.
Using robust tools like Peoplebox to run successful, thorough, and completely anonymous surveys gets you detailed qualitative and quantitative results, features to slice and dice, and work out all possible data combinations to get the real picture of how engaged people are in your company, and to get their candid suggestions.
These suggestions can be a breakthrough if done right. Employees may be liberated, and empowered to voice out their opinions and concerns and get them heard by the right people, which is core to employee development.
14. Holistic wellbeing programs
Holistic wellbeing programs are comprehensive initiatives designed to address various aspects of employees’ lives, including physical, mental, emotional, and social wellbeing.
41% of employees experience a lot of stress at work, which ultimately affects how engaged, productive, and happy people are at work.
| Matt Phelan, TEDx speaker and Co-Founder of The Happiness Index says, “ If people are engaged at work, but not keeping well, you get a competitive work environment where everyone is nice to each other’s faces but stabbing behind the backs or struggling behind closed doors. Business suffers in either case. If people are happy and well but aren’t engaged, you have an unfocused bunch of employees. Wellbeing, engagement, and happiness have to be balanced.” |
When you take care of holistic wellbeing programs, sickness/ absence rates decline, staff retention levels, and engagement levels skyrocket, productivity climbs, and leadership behavior increases, you can see better customer satisfaction scores and a wondrous improvement in stock performance.
15. Rotational leadership
By rotating through different leadership roles, employees refine their leadership skills more quickly than they might in a single, static role.
They learn to manage diverse teams, handle different types of challenges, and develop leadership competencies more rapidly.
This program helps identify and nurture high-potential leaders who are capable of taking on significant roles within the organization. This accelerates the development of future leaders and ensures a strong leadership pipeline.
Employees are less likely to leave an organization that invests in their development and provides them with varied career experiences.
Rotational programs help retain top talent by demonstrating a commitment to their long-term career growth.
16. Volunteering projects/social responsibility projects
Invite employees to work together on a social cause, arrange a CSR program, and ask them to contribute and show them how valuable they are to the world.
This is a great way to show they’re not alone, they can make a huge impact in the world, and they are irreplaceable in the community, family, and the world at large.
Managing multiple deadlines, working on a small budget yet making a profound impact, getting everybody to prioritize social responsibility in their spare time, bringing everyone together, and working towards a higher cause truly bring out one’s leadership qualities and inherent benevolence.
Once successfully implemented, these programs have a chance of being perpetuated by different generations of employees, since they inspire everyone on the team to tap into their potential.
These projects also evoke a sense of purpose in the organization and add new vigor to the working style, thus making employees feel empowered.
17. Self-care boot camps to focus on oneself
Most people with 9-5 jobs don’t stop working (physically or mentally) after their working hours. They don’t dissociate from work and have no time or the emotional bandwidth to think about where they are in life, what path they want to take, and how to get where they want to be.
Giving them a recluse from the cycle, in the form of a self-care boot camp can work wonders. In this program, employees will be taken to a retreat (in most cases) or done online.
A one or two-day program is completely dedicated to expert-guided self-care that takes care of mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing.
This time away from one’s day-to-day work and personal responsibilities gives a well-deserved relief to employees and helps them figure out what they want out of life, and what they need to do.
Most programs include sessions from external life coaches who help employees plan the next 5-7 years of their lives and also chalk up short-term plans (personal and professional).
These programs are meaningful, evoke a sense of purpose in employees, and remind them of their potential to achieve all their goals.
18. Career pathing programs to ascertain which path to take
66% of HR leaders agree career paths within their organizations are not compelling enough for many employees. Only 1 in 4 employees is confident about their career in their organization.
Career pathing programs are designed to guide employees through the various career options available within an organization, helping them identify and pursue the paths that best align with their interests, strengths, and long-term goals.
These can be as simple as an employee having a professional development dialogue with a manager, but they are immensely helpful.
Employees may want to explore roles in different departments without necessarily moving up the hierarchy. Lateral moves allow them to broaden their skill sets, gain new experiences, and build a more versatile career.
Traditional upward career paths, where employees move into higher-level positions with increased responsibilities, remain a common aspiration.
Employees often seek clear pathways to leadership or specialized roles within their field.
Certain employees may wish to delve deeper into a specific area of expertise, becoming subject matter experts. Career pathing for specialists focuses on honing technical skills and deepening knowledge in a particular domain.
It’s essential for organizations to communicate these career paths clearly to employees. This can be done through career development portals, workshops, and regular discussions with managers.
Transparency helps employees understand what is required to move into different roles, what opportunities are available to them, and the skill requirements for each such role.
19. Crisis management workshop
Organizations that deal with volatile situations in the economy, market, or community often have an emergency response team – an A-team to take care of everything important in case of any catastrophic emergency – from communication to ensuring safety, to taking of organizational functioning, to transferring funds to people in need, etc.
Similarly, conduct a crisis management workshop and appoint committees with benevolent individuals who will step up and rise to the occasion, should an emergency present itself at work.
Like other programs discussed above, setting up a crisis management team also taps into people’s inherent potential, leadership skills, and altruistic nature.
Set up a cross-functional A-team after the training, and have them come up with responsibilities they can take up to address the crisis.
20. Focused group discussions to share, vent, and brainstorm as a group
Employees, as a group, or individually may be going through challenges that they might not have the right forum to vent out or seek help for.
They also would want to discuss work issues and get a solution, without being judged by others.
Listening circles, or focused group discussions once a fortnight, where people come together without any particular agenda, and speak their minds, discuss, brainstorm, and listen to one another if anyone wants to vent and give a safe and supportive space.
Leaders need to make sure that this session isn’t used for work or task delegation amongst employees, and that it remains a space for people to truly connect.
These spaces for employees to interact candidly make a huge difference, and when they feel truly cared for, supported, and cheered on, they make extra efforts to work for you and take the initiative to make things happen.
Conclusion
The first step towards implementing the employee development plans we spoke about is to take a pulse check about how your people are feeling at the moment, and then working your way up.
If you’re looking for an expert-backed performance and engagement management tool to help you get started, contact Peoplebox today.
We’ve been trusted by leading SaaS companies like RazorPay, and Nova Benefits to streamline their HR processes to meet evolving trends, leverage technology to boost your employer brand, skyrocket your employee value proposition, and make the whole process a cakewalk, for an affordable price at lighting speeds.
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