Planning for Employee Development
Why Planning for Development Is Important
Organizations are unable to achieve their missions, goals, and objectives without their people completing the necessary work required. In order to achieve outlined goals and improve departments, employees need to be kept abreast with the latest developments whether it be the newest technology trends or being informed of pertinent industry knowledge. Though developing employees is key, many employers underestimate the value this brings to individuals employees and whole teams. This guide will lead administrators through the necessary steps for setting SMART goals and creating individual development plans for employees. Proper employee development planning will ensure that administrators have the right people with the right knowledge, skills, and abilities in place to achieve the goals and mission of the organizations.
Making a Development Plan
It only makes sense: You’re more likely to achieve your goal if you have a plan for how you’ll do so. Taking the time to create and actually document this plan will not only help you to see a clear path toward achievement, but creates accountability for you once you share it with your manager. (Don’t worry, plans can change –and should change–if obstacles or opportunities arise that warrant adjustments.) View the full process for creating a development plan.
Now that you’ve done the work, why not document it? You’ve worked with your staff or academic administrator to established your development goal in your performance evaluation and you’ve convened a plan for achieving it. Keep track of your development plan by logging it in Workday where you will be able to access your plans from year to year. View this quick ‘how-to’ resource.
Choosing Courage Over Comfort
Choosing courage over comfort starts with knowing who we are and what we value as individuals. According to Brené Brown, we must go further than professing our values; we must practice them. Be clear about who you are, what you believe, and "walk the talk." Living into your values, as Brown calls it, takes a lot of work. We have to be willing to spend time in the stillness and consider who we are at the core of our being.
Part 1: Living Into Your Values
To start the journey of living into our values, we have developed an exercise to walk you through the three steps that allow you to define your values and take them from just an ideal to guiding principles of your life.
Start by watching this interactive video that will take you through the process of clarifying your top three values. Next, open up the personal values log to help you bring your values to life! Please set aside 30 minutes to complete the exercise.
Part 2: Engaged Feedback
Feedback is necessary in all facets of our lives. Feedback helps strengthen relationships, teams, work processes, and so much more! Feedback can be formal or informal. Consider the staff and academic administrator feedback survey that you complete on an annual basis or providing feedback to a colleague on a project that you are working on collaboratively. Keep in mind that feedback can highlight both the positive and negative aspects of a situation.
Brené Brown gives us a checklist to help us determine if we are in the right headspace to give someone feedback. Until you can answer "yes" to all ten points on the list, hold off on giving feedback. Let's focus our attention on numbers three and five. While all of the points are essential when giving feedback, these two points can be the most challenging and play such a huge role in having a successful conversation!
In addition to the ten-point checklist, it’s important to think about how we’re going to live into our values when we give and receive feedback. Consider how you want to show up in the conversation and bring your core values along with you. Remember those behaviors that you determined in part 1 of the exercise that diverge you from your values? Keep those in mind when entering difficult conversations and remind yourself of all of the positive behaviors that help you stay true to your values. Facilitating challenging conversations is a great opportunity to self-empower and practice living into your values.
