How to create an employee development plan (with template and example)

An employee tells their manager they'd like to grow into a bigger role. The manager says, "Let's find you a leadership course," and types it into a form. Nobody books the course, nobody asks what the employee wants to do afterward, and the conversation doesn't come up again for months.

For the employee, that's a career without a development plan they can act on. For the business, it's training money that isn't tied to anyone's goals.

An employee development plan closes that gap. It starts from where the person is and where they want to go, and it names a goal, an activity, an owner, and a date for every next step. This guide shows how to build one, what goes in the template, and when a shared template is enough.

Key takeaways

• Limit each plan to one to three employee growth goals, and give every goal an activity, an owner, and a date.

• Start from the person's career interests and the expectations of their role, and use performance feedback as one input among several.

• Assignments and coaching drive most learning in the 70-20-10 guideline, so a small training budget doesn't stop a plan.

• HR should check whether plans look plausible across teams, because a full completion count can hide plans nobody used.

• A development plan template in a shared document works until plans outgrow what one HR person can review.

What an employee development plan includes

Some organizations call it an individual development plan (IDP). It holds one to three growth goals, the activities that build each one, the support needed, and the dates for each progress check.

A good plan answers four questions:

• Where does this person want to go in the next one to three years?

• Which skills and experiences do they need to get there?

• How will they build them: through assignments, people, or courses?

• Who owns each step, and when will you check progress?

The plan looks forward. It can start at any point in the year: after a promotion, when someone finishes onboarding, when a team adopts a new tool, or when an employee asks about their next move. Many companies write plans after an annual review, and the feedback from that review is a useful input. It is one input among several, though, and a plan doesn't need to wait for the review cycle.

If you do link the two, learn how to run a performance review first.

A performance improvement plan (PIP) is a different tool. It addresses a specific performance gap within a fixed period and can carry consequences for the employee's job. Keep its name and paperwork separate, so employees don't read every development plan as a warning.

Inside the plan, separate performance goals from development goals. A performance goal describes what to deliver, such as answering support tickets within the agreed time. A development goal describes a capability to build, such as running a team meeting without the manager present.

Watch for plans that only restate a gap. A plan that says "improve communication" leaves the employee with nothing to do on Monday morning.

Why development plans stall

Plans stall when nobody owns the next step. The form gets submitted, HR marks it complete, and the agreed actions stay in a file nobody opens. The goals were too vague to start on, no follow-up was booked, and the plan isn't part of anyone's weekly routine.

Imagine a manager finding last year's plan in a shared drive the day before a career conversation with the same employee. Nothing on it was started, and nobody can say whether it still matters.

Training itself already exists in most EU companies with 10 or more staff. According to Eurostat data on training in enterprises, 67.4% of EU enterprises of that size provided continuing vocational training to staff in 2020.

The 2020 survey counts companies, and that year was affected by COVID-19. Small enterprises (10-49 employees) came in at 63.5%, compared with 82.5% for medium-sized enterprises (50-249 employees).

Smaller teams have less formal training to draw on, so assignments and coaching carry more of each plan. At any company size, the development plan connects a course or project to one person's goal.

How to create an employee development plan in six steps

Managers can run these six steps whenever a development conversation is due, with HR setting up the format and supporting along the way. Managers do this work between other deadlines, so each step builds on notes they already keep.

1. Start from the employee's career interests

Begin with the person, not the form. Ask the employee where they want to be in one to three years, which parts of their work they enjoy most, and what they'd like to be able to do that they can't do yet.

Then look at the expectations for their current role, and for the next role if they have one in mind. The gap between the two is where development goals come from. Managers can bring two or three lines of notes from recent one-to-ones: what the person did well, and what they'd like to try next.

2. Map current skills and gaps

Before the conversation, the employee lists their own strengths and the skills they want to build. The manager writes their view of the same two lists. Neither person sees the other's version until both are done, which keeps the conversation honest and gives you two perspectives to compare.

Some managers have little firsthand context, for example, because they joined the team three months ago. A 360-degree feedback process gives them a structured way to incorporate peer input. If a recent performance review exists, add its feedback to the picture here and treat it as evidence, not as the plan itself.

3. Agree on one to three development goals

From that conversation, agree on one to three goals. Write each one as a SMART goal: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

A vague goal reads "improve presentation skills." As a SMART goal, it becomes "present the monthly customer report to leadership twice by the end of June." Now both people know what will happen and by when.

Ask the employee what support they need from the manager for each goal, and write the answer into the plan. Then link each goal to the expectations for the current role, or to the next role the person wants. That link turns the page into a career development plan. Check that each goal also supports the business needs in your wider people strategy.

4. Choose activities with the 70-20-10 guideline

With goals agreed, choose how the employee will build each capability. The Center for Creative Leadership's 70-20-10 guideline comes from its Lessons of Experience research on how executives learn.

In that guideline, 70% of learning comes from challenging experiences and assignments. Developmental relationships account for 20%, and coursework and training for 10%.

Because the research looked at executives, use the split as a rough planning check for other roles, without counting hours. If every activity on the plan is a course, add a stretch assignment and a person to learn from.

An assignment might be running the next team retrospective or owning a supplier relationship for a quarter. A people activity could be monthly coaching with a senior colleague or shadowing a peer on sales calls. A course fits when the employee needs a specific method, such as giving feedback.

5. Name owners, support, and dates

Every activity on the plan needs one person's name and one date. The employee owns the actions, and the manager owns the time and the opportunities. HR owns the process and any budget decisions.

Nishma Kamdar, Global HR Business Partner (HRBP) at Tellent, explains how HR business partners support managers directly:

Nishma also describes a leadership program, run first for the senior leadership team and planned for other managers. Part of its content covers how managers switch into a coaching role that supports the employee's development.

Next to each activity, add who will book or approve anything the employee can't arrange alone. Examples include a workshop seat or time with a mentor in another team.

6. Review progress in regular check-ins

Put the plan on the agenda of every one-to-one, even if it gets only five minutes. Aim for a longer check-in every few months that pulls together what you've already discussed and doesn't introduce new feedback.

Employees notice how frequently they hear from their manager. Gallup research on feedback frequency (US workers, 2024) found that 48% of employees with weekly or more manager feedback were engaged, compared with 5% with annual feedback or less.

Update the plan when the role changes or a project ends early, and rewrite it when the plan period ends.

Employee development plan template

A shared format gives every manager the same starting point and lets HR compare plans side by side. According to Nishma, HR may share templates with managers to keep these reference points and data points. She adds that they can also sit in the manager's one-to-one sheet.

Keep the development plan template to one page, so a manager can fill it in within 20 minutes of the development conversation. Copy the table below into a document or spreadsheet.

Reuse the same template each cycle and change only one or two fields at a time, so plans from different years stay comparable.

Worked example: a development plan for a new team lead

This illustrative scenario shows every step in one plan. Sofia is a customer support specialist at a 120-person software company in Rotterdam, just promoted to lead five support agents.

In her first month as team lead, her manager, Daan, booked a development conversation. Sofia said she wanted to run good one-to-ones and named a move into support operations as her longer-term goal. Daan's notes from recent one-to-ones showed that she solved complex tickets quickly, trained new hires informally, and avoided giving corrective feedback.

They each listed Sofia's strengths and gaps before meeting. Sofia asked for help running one-to-ones. Daan noted that she needed practice with difficult conversations and reporting.

In the conversation, they agreed on two goals and a mix of activities. The completed template shows what they wrote, using the same fields as the blank version.

At the six-week check-in, Sofia had held one-to-ones with all five agents and postponed one corrective conversation. Daan joined that conversation the following week, and the coaching sessions shifted to it.

At the 12-week check-in, Sofia had sent the escalation report alone for four weeks in a row, and two agents mentioned the weekly sessions when Daan asked how the team was finding the change.

Daan and Sofia closed goal two and kept goal one open for another quarter. They added a new goal: presenting the escalation report to the support director once a month.

Types of development plans and when to use each

A promotion plan and a skills-gap plan need different owners and timelines, so pick the type before you write goals. Treat the suggested lengths below as starting points for your own planning cycle.

When a plan targets promotion, compare it with the person's talent assessment and recent performance ratings first. If the assessment says "ready now" and the ratings say "below expectations," resolve that conflict before the conversation, or the employee leaves with two messages.

How to check whether development plans are working

Picture one department where every plan was marked complete on the same afternoon. That team's completion rate is 100%. It says nothing about whether anyone learned anything.

A short quarterly review of a handful of signals gives HR a better read. Compare these signals across departments, and look at them together:

• Count the share of plans that had at least one check-in in the last quarter.

• Check how many goals marked done have evidence attached.

• Look at internal moves and promotions among people who have plans.

• Compare plan completion and goal quality by department, and look more closely where they're unusually high or low.

Development data alone won't explain why a plan stalled. HR can find the cause by reading people analytics signals together, such as engagement surveys, absence, and exit interviews.

A top performer whose engagement score drops while her plan shows no check-ins since spring needs a conversation this month. After managers start coaching, a short pulse survey shows whether employees notice any change.

When a shared template is enough and when you need software

A shared document or spreadsheet works when one HR person can review every plan, and managers keep notes in one place. For a company with a handful of managers, that setup is enough, and buying software early adds admin.

Things look different for an HR manager who spends a week chasing 40 managers by email for plan updates. These signs suggest the shared template has reached its limit:

• Plans are scattered across personal drives and inboxes.

• Nobody can see which plans have had a check-in this quarter.

• Training requests arrive by email and get lost.

• HR can't see which skills exist across teams.

• Check-in notes, which contain personal data, sit in files without access control.

For more on sizing the process, see this guide to performance management for SMEs. Write your requirements from your own plan cycle before you watch any demo, because managers may skip a tool picked from a feature list. Ask each provider to run these tests live with your sample data:

Plan for the demo to cover exceptions as well as the ideal path. Bring questions that require the provider to show real screens:

• Can you show a manager creating a development plan for an employee and linking it to a role expectation?

• Which report shows plans with no check-in in the last 90 days?

• What happens to an open plan when an employee changes manager halfway through?

Where Tellent HR Grow fits

Plans that outgrow a shared document need one place for goals, check-ins, and training requests. Tellent HR Grow, the performance and development module of Tellent HR, brings those pieces together.

With Tellent HR Grow employee development, teams create individual development plans and role expectations. HR can build an internal database of soft and hard skills at the organization and team level, with a custom assessment scale.

Training needs and requests are documented in one place, where HR can prioritize them by budget and need and export a summary. When HR validates or refuses a request with one click, the employee is notified automatically.

HR Grow offers check-in and review cycles with types such as "Training and development plan," 1-to-1 feedback, and annual reviews. HR can create custom templates by team or position and set email automations for reminders and recurring check-ins.

Check-in notes can be electronically signed and stored securely. Dashboards filter by employee group and export, and mapped skills and listed trainings appear in separate summaries for HR. To see whether coaching changes anything, HR can run anonymized engagement surveys in HR Grow at regular intervals and filter the responses.

Managers and employees still agree on what goes into each plan; HR Grow structures the cycle and keeps the record. For a team with only a handful of plans, a shared document may do the job. If your main need is hosting course content, a learning platform is the more relevant category.

Making development plans part of the working year

Development plans hold up when they run alongside the year's normal work. Managers ask about career interests, set a few goals with a name and date beside each, and put the plan on the agenda of every one-to-one. HR then checks whether plans look plausible across teams.

Move to software once plans outgrow what one HR person can follow. As a first step this week, pick three managers to pilot the template in their next development conversations. Afterward, ask them which fields they skipped.

To see a development plan check-in run end to end in software, book a Tellent HR demo and bring one real plan to walk through.