A personal development plan is essential for successful career growth. It tackles self-development in professional aspects. The importance of personal development comes from its ability to meaningfully channel reflection and goal setting. Here’s the full article from GineersNow.
Personal Development Plan: Why Is It Important?
More often than not, the career plans of engineers are only made inside their minds. They are almost never written or stated explicitly, which lacks the opportunity and convenience in checking if the current status of employment is in line with the career goals.
It’s hard to determine whether a person’s career growth is dynamic or stagnant. Employees often wait until they’re up for promotion to even consider their performance. Others are happy to wait until their boss decides to change something. However, these situations are problematic. These instances show career growth as external factors. They hold other people accountable for someone else’s career path.
What Is a Personal Development Plan?
Check out these top #tips for making the most of your Personal Development Plan https://t.co/gKCMgiIVin #RBSjobs pic.twitter.com/OzTh151TQR
— RBS Jobs (@JobsatRBS) October 26, 2017
A personal development plan is a worksheet. It needs to be filled out either digitally or manually. It focuses on a person’s learnings, achievements, and recent performance. All these items are put together into one worksheet.
One of the goals of a personal development plan is to provide employees with short and long term goals. It aids in the employee’s reflection and goal setting.
The worksheet acts as a reference for the future. That way, employees can look back at their past plans and determine if their career growth matches their intentions. The worksheet also helps employees set goals for the year ahead. It shows them where they currently stand. It asks them about things they’re interested in learning and pursuing further.
Consider the worksheet as a form of SWOT-analysis. It asks employees what their strengths and weaknesses are. It also questions their opportunities for growth and career threats. Employees need to be completely honest when answering their personal development plan.
For example, opportunities for growth may include trainings and seminars. These allow the employee to gain more experience with the task at hand. Career threats, on the other hand, are obstacles hindering the employee from improving. These may include the feeling of being threatened by other co-workers’ strengths or increased episodes of burn-out.
Why Have a Personal Development Plan?
A personal development plan helps employees identify key competencies and skills to develop. This comes in especially handy for engineers. When they think of their action plan, they have to bear in mind the factors beyond their professional life as well. They have to take into account family planning, as well as possible relocation offers. In addition to these variables, they have to identify a reasonable time frame for completing their goals. Having these goals written down helps push a person to accomplish them.
Need a sample for your upcoming personal development plan? Press play on the video below:
Have any experience filling out a personal development plan? Share your stories with us. Leave a comment below!
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