7 Steps to Create Career Development Plans to Achieve Your Goals

Career development plans can help to find newer opportunities to advance one’s career. Career planning and development is the best way to keep your employees focused on the main objective and ensure that every employee accomplishes their goal. In doing so, you will achieve the collective goal of the organization. So, let us count the steps to creating an efficient career development plan to help employees achieve their goal.

1. Explain the importance of career development plan

The foremost method to keep every employee focused on the goal and to perform better is to continually reinforce the bigger picture — career change and/or growth. Make your employee understand how achieving individual goals will contribute to the overall objective of the organization. Explain to them why employees should keep specific individual goals and how they will benefit from achieving them.

The “why” should be crystal clear. This will encourage your employees to participate in an employee development plan. Good leaders always emphasize why setting a specific individual goal creates a positive difference within the organization. At the same time, it is also important to keep an eye on the bigger picture. After all, growth should be holistic to create a substantial impact on the individual and the company. Passionate individuals are generally driven by a purpose, a belief or a cause. Good leaders emphasize on the “why” from the beginning, inspire others to take some action. When this happens, everybody wins.

2. Frequent communication

Communication is key to build an effective career development plan. Talk to your employees regularly and monitor their performance. Are they facing any problems? Is their performance up to the measurable benchmark? Conduct team meetings monthly or weekly depending on your business and keep your employees updated. It is also good to encourage participation from every member present in the interview and ensure that the meeting is relevant, focused and engaging. Do not wait till the final moment, and be proactive with your approach to achieve the desired result.

If something is not going as planned, be upfront; don’t beat around the bush. Be honest and open with your views. Let your employees know what you expect. If there are any changes, communicate instantly to the team. Do not wait; it is really important to explain the changes and its reasons to the team. Employees appreciate transparency from the management. If a team is lagging on their goals, seek feedback on ideas to get the team on track. Errors happen, but rather than fretting about the issue, seek participation towards finding the solution.

3. Make things light-hearted

A career development plan to improve employee performance should not look burdensome. Constructive team activities could help foster positivity among the employees while keeping the momentum high. By using diagrams, charts or illusions while explaining career development goals, you can build a light-hearted atmosphere and convey the most important messages without burdening your employees with it.

It is important to maintain the interest of the workforce. The best way to keep a track of the goal is to make a huge cardboard thermometer, with the team colours starting from below and going upwards as they get closer to their goal. The objective is written on top and could be followed up with rewards, accolades, increments or promotion. You can customise this as per the requirement of your business. The purpose is to make things light-hearted while keeping the employees focused on the goal.

4. Break your goal into small targets

Sometimes goals could fail, as they look overwhelming. However, they are easier to achieve if you break them into smaller targets. Successful people view their final goals and then they work backwards. To achieve your yearly goal, focus on what you need to do weekly or monthly to achieve the larger objective.

Achieving goals is like running a marathon. One does not start the run saying that you will reach 26 km and then decide what route to take to achieve the goal. Rather, you set incremental targets, slowly pushing your boundaries of endurance and, eventually, complete the race. Take small decisive steps daily; you will find yourself acing the desired objective.

5. Avoid multitasking

If you plan to achieve too much in a short period, you miss out on something or the other. When it comes to accomplishing your goals, quality matters more than quantity. Multitasking will only distract you from your core objective. You may be doing a hundred things at the same time but you will not be doing what is necessary to achieve your objective. Instead, if you can focus all your attention on a single activity at once, you will accomplish your goal.

Follow this:

• Give every task the time it deserves; do not indulge in doing many tasks simultaneously.
• Create your to-do-list. Select your top daily priorities and note them down.
• Provide yourself with a clear deadline.
• Resist the temptation of checking emails and other notifications every time you get them. Keep a regular time during the day when you will read and respond to messages.
• Allot less time for a meeting. This will allow you to go to the heart of the subject and cover the points quicker, in a comparatively less time than imagined.

6. Get feedback

The best leaders include their employees for the goal-creation process. They motivate their employees to plan and achieve their goals.

Ask your staff what their action plan is to achieve their goals and give them appropriate feedback. For this, the questions you must ask your employees include:

• What will happen now? What will be the effects of this action?
• Did you already take the steps to achieve your goals?
• Do these objectives conflict with other goals?
• How are you planning to overcome the issue? What will stop our forward movement?
• How often should you review your progress? Weekly, monthly, daily?

By including your employees in planning your goals, you prepare them to take the onus of their actions and be more focused and accountable. When your employees feel involved and accountable for the goal, they will experience better success. This will also improve the overall productivity of the team.

7. Celebrate every little success

Do not wait till the goal is fully accomplished to celebrate your success. Learn to celebrate the accomplishment of the smaller targets that you have set to meet the bigger goal. Once you achieve a milestone, congratulate your employees for their contribution and hard work. Reinforce positivity and offer encouragement to continue to stay focused on the objective. Always focus on the positives and you will achieve your objectives. Do not focus on pitfalls; they will take your attention off your goal. Reward small victories and nurture your employees for great successes.

With the help of these steps, you can help your employees create an elaborate career development plan. If you want to achieve your goal, you need to have a plan. Give individual goals to your employees and then sit with them and formulate the plans, which will help them achieve their goals. Because when your employees achieve their individual goals, the company will as well.