Individual development plan template in MS Word and Excel
This innovative individual development plan template in MS Word is designed to be a strong but simple performance improvement tool. It increases employee engagement and retention while boosting their work performance.
It’s a win-win for both employer and employee:
- This template develops employee’s job skills, it doesn’t distract them with long term goals, so performance improvement is assured
- By concentrating on job proficiency skills, employer can pinpoint exactly where employee needs improvement
- Employers are now able to develop multiple skill sets in parallel each quarter – job skills, soft skills, leadership etc.
- Easy set up and implementation: employee fills out plan in advance, employer just needs to make any edits or changes at quarterly review
Sample completed example of individual development plan template in Word
If you are a manager or employer who wants more productive and engaged employees, try this individual development plan template in Word. It is ready to be edited and deployed immediately.
This template was built to save both you and the employee’s time. It is the perfect tool to help you target key areas of development for employees.
To get the best benefit of this IDP Template example, see this employee development resource. It explains how to properly set up and administer employee development plan templates:
How employee development directly affects job performance
Employee development is the fastest way to performance improvement.
This is because you are focusing on job related skills, not employee development goals. Using this concept is why this individual development plan in word can instantly improve poor job performance.
You’ve seen the crappy individual development templates out there. If you are using a 1 or 2 year development goal, you are confusing your employee. You are putting their focus on the future instead of on job performance skills they are using now.
This individual development plan helps you avoid that mistake. It is properly focused on job proficiencies the employee uses daily.
Click here to get your free Individual Development Plan Template in MS Word:
How to set up this individual development plan template in word
First thing to do is grab the employees job description and job requirements. They will be a great starting point for most of the job skills and work performance expectations you want to develop.
From that you draw a list of job proficiencies. The individual development plan template is designed to include 3 areas:
- Work related job proficiencies
- Job support proficiencies
- Soft skills
Once the 3 areas of job proficiencies are added to the template, you are done.
The employee self-completes the EDP in advance of sitting down with manager. You can deliver the template by adding it as a task in Outlook or simply as an email to employee. This gives them time to complete it on their own.
Employee completes their part of the template by going through each proficiency and:
- Rate how they believe they perform in each job proficiency
- Once done, employee goes through the list a second time. This time they will prioritize which proficiency they need to develop most by ranking them
- The goal is to pick 3 (to 5 max) job proficiencies to work on for the quarter
Quarterly Employee Review between manager and employee
Each quarter, the manager and employe will review their progress.
- Manager ranks and rates employees list of proficiencies in order to agree on top 3 to 5 proficiencies for employee to work on (Managers can do this in advance to save time)
- Manager has final say on which final proficiencies will be developed for the quarter.
Note: First meeting may not be at the end of quarter. It could be whenever the employee is onboarded or is first hired.
Find out more about making the most out of the employee quarterly review here.
Get the complete Employee Development Plan Template Kit
This individual development plan template is part of a complete employee development plan template kit.
If you want to boost your employees job performance from day one, get my powerful Employee Development Plan Template Kit.
It is a career development plan with a focus on performance improvement.
Note from the author, Larry LaFata: This content is written by a real human being, for human beings. It is not commoditized content from A. I. machines.
