How to Create an Employee Development Plan

Learning how to create an employee development plan is one of the most direct ways to grow and keep your best people. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report has found that 94% of employees would stay longer at a company that invests in their career development, yet many managers still treat development as an annual formality. This guide explains what an employee development plan is, how it differs from a training program, and how to create one in six steps, with real examples and a reusable template you can adapt. An employee development plan is also called an individual development plan, or IDP.

How to create an employee development plan in 6 steps

At a glance, an effective employee development plan comes together in six steps:

1. Define the employee’s short and long-term career goals
2. Assess current skills and identify gaps
3. Set measurable development objectives
4. Choose development activities: courses, mentoring, and stretch assignments
5. Set a timeline with milestones and check-ins
6. Review progress and adjust the plan

The sections below work through each step, using a marketing coordinator growing toward a manager role as a running example.

What is an employee development plan?

An employee development plan is a structured, living document that maps an individual employee’s growth goals and the specific actions, skills, and support needed to reach them. Often called an individual development plan (IDP), it is built jointly by the employee and their manager and revisited regularly. It focuses on one person’s long-term growth and career direction, which is what sets it apart from broader training efforts.

What about individual development plans (IDPs)?

You will often see the term individual development plan, or IDP, used for the same thing, and in most organizations the two are interchangeable. IDP emphasizes that the plan belongs to one person and is frequently employee-led, with the manager acting as coach. The structure is identical: career goals, current skills, gaps, development activities, and regular check-ins. If your company runs plans inside a performance or HR system, they are usually labeled IDPs.

Employee development plan vs training program

These two are easy to confuse, and the difference matters. Both build skills, but they work at different levels. A training program is organizational and role-focused, while an employee development plan is individual and career-focused. Here is how they compare. 

The two are complementary. A development plan identifies what an individual needs to grow, and a well-built employee training program is often how those needs get met. The plan sets the direction, and training delivers much of the movement.

Why employee development plans matter

Development is now one of the strongest levers you have for retention and engagement. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report has found that 94% of employees would stay longer at an organization that invests in their career development, and that companies with a strong learning culture see a 57% retention rate compared with 27% at companies with only a moderate one.

Engagement is the other half of the story. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report found that just 20% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, and growth is a large part of why people leave. When Pew Research Center surveyed people who quit a job in 2021, 63% cited a lack of opportunities for advancement, tying with low pay as the most common reason given. A visible development plan directly answers the question employees ask most: where can I go from here, and how do I get there?

Development plans are one piece of a broader employee training and development strategy, and they are often where that strategy becomes personal for each employee.

Types of employee development plans

Development plans take different shapes depending on the goal:

• Career growth or promotion plans prepare an employee for a specific next role.
• Skills-based plans build capability in the current role, including new tools and technology such as AI, and pair well with a competency-based framework.
• Leadership and succession plans prepare high-potential employees to manage others, often paired with first-time manager training.
• Lateral or role-change plans support a move into a different function.

Performance improvement plans, which SHRM frames as a tool for addressing specific performance deficiencies, are more remediation-focused than the growth plans above.

The six steps in detail

Step 1: Define career goals

Start with where the employee wants to go, in both the short and long term. Talk through their interests, strengths, and ambitions, and connect them to real opportunities in the organization. Goals give the whole plan direction. Example: our marketing coordinator wants to move into a marketing manager role within two years.

Step 2: Assess current skills and identify gaps

Compare the skills the employee has today with the skills the goal requires. A structured skills gap analysis keeps this honest and specific. Include self-assessment, manager feedback, and recent performance. Example: strong on content and campaign execution, gaps in analytics, budget management, and leading people.

Step 3: Set measurable development objectives

Turn each gap into a specific, measurable objective with a target date. Vague aims like "get better at analytics" cannot be tracked. Example: independently build and present a monthly campaign performance report by the end of Q3.

Step 4: Choose development activities

Match each objective to the right mix of activities, not just courses. A useful guide here is the 70-20-10 model from the Center for Creative Leadership, which observed that development tends to come roughly 70% from hands-on experience, 20% from other people, and 10% from formal coursework. In practice that means blending a mix of training delivery methods: online courses to build knowledge, mentoring for guidance, and stretch assignments to apply new skills. This is where a course library does much of the heavy lifting, giving employees a fast, consistent way to build the specific skills their objectives call for. Example: an analytics course, a budgeting workshop, and co-leading one campaign with the current manager.

Step 5: Set a timeline with milestones and check-ins

Give the plan a schedule so it stays active. Break the work into milestones, and set a regular check-in rhythm rather than waiting for an annual review. The plan should be a living document the employee and manager update together as progress happens.

Step 6: Review progress and adjust

Revisit the plan on a set cadence and change it as goals and roles evolve. Celebrate completed milestones, address what stalled, and reset objectives as the employee grows. Continuous feedback is what keeps a plan meaningful rather than letting it become forgotten paperwork.

Employee development plan examples

Concrete examples make the structure easier to apply. Here are three development plans for common situations, each showing how goals, gaps, and activities connect.

Example 1: Individual contributor moving toward management

A marketing coordinator wants to grow into a marketing manager role, so the plan targets the three capabilities that separate the two jobs.

Goal: Move from marketing coordinator to marketing manager within two years

Starting point: Strong content creation and campaign execution

Skill gaps: Marketing analytics, budget management, leading people

Development activities: Analytics and budgeting courses, a leadership mentor, co-leading one campaign

Timeline: Quarterly milestones over 18 to 24 months, reviewed monthly

Success measure: Independently plans and leads a full campaign, including budget and reporting

Example 2: Building skills for an expanded role

A financial analyst is taking on data and AI responsibilities as the role grows, so the plan blends courses with a hands-on project.

Goal: Own the team reporting dashboard and apply AI tools to analysis

Starting point: Solid financial modeling and spreadsheet skills

Skill gaps: Data visualization, applied AI tools, presenting insights to non-finance teams

Development activities: Self-paced data and AI courses, a stretch project owning one dashboard, peer review

Timeline: Six months, reviewed at each one-on-one

Success measure: Delivers a monthly dashboard and an AI-assisted analysis leaders rely on

Example 3: Growing toward team lead

A top-performing customer support representative is on track to lead the team, so the plan focuses on people skills.

Goal: Move into a support team lead role within a year

Starting point: Top performer on resolution time and customer satisfaction

Skill gaps: Coaching, conflict resolution, performance conversations

Development activities: Leadership courses, shadowing the current lead, running weekly team huddles

Timeline: Twelve months, milestones each quarter

Success measure: Confidently runs team huddles and coaches two peers

A reusable employee development plan template

Use this template as a starting point for any development plan. Each row is a section to complete with the employee, and you can adapt it into an editable worksheet for your team.

Common mistakes to avoid

A few recurring mistakes turn good intentions into unused documents:

• Treating the plan as annual paperwork instead of a living process.
• Setting goals so broad they cannot be measured.
• Focusing only on the next promotion and ignoring growth in the current role.
• Listing activities with no manager support or accountability.
• Building the plan once and never revisiting it.

Supporting employee development with Intellezy

A development plan is only as strong as the learning behind it, and that is where Intellezy gives the plan somewhere to point. A library of 500+ ready-to-use courses spans the software, business, communication, and leadership skills that development goals most often call for, so employees can start building the moment a plan is set.

Our Custom eLearning team develops role-specific content for the skills a library does not cover, and our Learning and Change team helps you connect individual plans to a broader development strategy that managers can actually sustain.

Ready to give your employees’ development plans real momentum? Schedule a complimentary scoping call using the form below.