The acronym IDP stands for Individual Development Plan. This term has grown and gained a lot of ground within companies, but what is an IDP anyway and how do you carry out an individual development plan?
This individual development tool is used as a way of aligning the company's interests with those of its employees. It also enables these professionals to grow.
What is an Individual Development Plan (IDP)?
An individual development plan, or IDP as it is also called, is basically an internal company program that provides direction for employees' careers.
The IDP is widely used to develop the skills and competencies of professionals, but it is worth emphasizing the importance of good planning before putting the personal development plan into practice within a company. A good IDP should mainly contain targets and deadlines before it is put into practice. Its main objective should be to invest in preparing and training employees so that they can grow and prosper within the company.
Therefore, a personal development plan is essential for companies whose goal is their own growth and the simultaneous growth of their employees, promoting a meritocratic culture of high-performance professionals.
What impact does the IDP have on companies?
The personal development plan has become increasingly important within companies for a number of reasons:
- The PDI helps companies and employees move towards the same goal;
- The PDI helps to identify the strengths and areas for improvement for the company and, above all, for the professionals;
- The PDI helps to establish a more concrete action plan based on the development of professionals;
- The IDP helps to accelerate and achieve results;
- The PDI helps to raise productivity and engagement;
- The IDP helps to organize processes;
- It brings the manager and the employee closer together.
As well as being an important methodology within companies, the PDI has specific objectives for each professional. The aim of this strategy is to boost skills and prepare employees for growth within the organization and possible promotion.
How to put the IDP into practice?
As this is an individual development plan, the process must be personalized and adapted to each individual. For this reason, it is ideal to draw up a path to indicate the route to be taken for individual development. To do this, it is important to follow the steps below for the IDP to be successful:
- Performance evaluation
Performance appraisals are important for getting to know employees better and, above all, for developing them better. In a performance appraisal there is no deduction about the person, but rather concrete and truthful answers, so the PDI becomes more appropriate for each member of the company.
The performance appraisal helps the company to map out the competencies of each professional, as well as those that need to be developed and those that need to be acquired. And with the result of the performance appraisal, the IDP can be much more effective.
- Definition of objectives and goals
For the PDI to work, it is important to have clear and well-defined goals and objectives. To do this, everything must be aligned with the team, so that the development of all the competencies takes place gradually.
Therefore, divide the goals into parts according to your short-, medium- and long-term objectives and monitor the progress of all the stages.
- Cost analysis
Analyzing costs will help you understand how much you can invest in this individual development process. It will also help you decide on the stages of the strategic and operational process.
It is therefore important to monitor the budget available for the IDP and also to calculate the return on the investment made in the individual development plan.
- I mapped out the competencies.
The competency mapping stage is extremely important for the IDP, which will help you analyze and map the important competencies of each employee, as well as helping you select and design which competencies need to be developed in order to achieve company and individual objectives.
Competency mapping helps managers and leaders to understand whether the team needs greater or lesser investment and whether they are performing well in the roles they have been assigned, or whether they need closer or more specific monitoring and development.
- Provide feedback
Once the previous stages have been completed, the process of applying feedback begins. This stage is important so that all professionals understand their score in the performance evaluation and know where they need to improve and where they need to keep moving forward. As well as helping to align company and employees, it helps to make it clear what needs to be developed and what skills the professional lacks.
These were the five stages that a personal development plan needs to go through in order to be put into practice efficiently, but remember that all these stages become more efficient when they are thought through together with the leader and the person being led.
