Never has there been more pressure on companies of all sizes to offer personal development as part of their employment offer, yet most employees don’t believe they offer the benefits or outcomes they are seeking. In fact, most employers struggle to see the return on the time, cost and effort investment.
Yet it should be the very tool that focuses people on the company’s business targets, and provides a real return on investment. If your Personal Development Programme (or Performance Management System, whatever you prefer to call it) is not delivering tangible benefits to both the employee and the company, then you are doing it wrong.
The key is the Partnership-based model.
Most employees see the PDP as being the responsibility of the business, yet it is their career. This toolkit is structured to hand the day-to-day responsibility of personal development and goal management to the employee.
The partner guide for agencies, “Setting up a Partnership Personal Development Programme”, is designed to work hand-in-hand with the individual’s career planner, equipping agencies with an easy framework to implement with minimal time and maximum output.
Employees are actively enabled to take control of their own career and goal management.
This planner is filled with exercises, templates and top tips on how to set their vision, create measurable goals, break it down into actionable milestones and a weekly tracker to keep them focused.
By providing each employee with their own Career & Goal Planner, they are coached into setting viable objectives for their goals and are inspired to track their own goals and prepare for regular check-ins. They come to meetings with a positive attitude, good observations and ideas that make for a more meaningful development-oriented conversation
Agencies are supported with an objective-based PDP model that equips managers to have good and directive conversations.
Most managers are not coached or equipped to have performance-building conversations with their team members – and many line managers feel quite exposed and as anxious as the employee when setting goals or conducting performance reviews.
Our agency framework helps managers to create viable and target-based objectives for their team members, which give greater autonomy to the employee and enables the manager to have more effective conversations at the regular, pre-scheduled check-ins.
A training guide gives people a simple roadmap to follow, helping them to think about their life goals and career ambitions, then start identifying goals and objectives to make it happen.
The planner is broken down into undated weeks with blank planner pages for people to fill in their own information, starting at any time of the year.
What makes a partnership-based approach work so well?
The IF X THEN Y Personal Development Programme has three driving philosophies:
(1) it is time efficient for agency leaders and managers without compromising employee outcomes
(2) it needs to deliver measurable ROI
(3) to ensure employees own their own career and personal development.
People want greater autonomy in a hybrid working world
Most people – employees and leaders alike – enjoy hybrid working when it works! A major criticism by employees is that managers need to trust more and micro-manage less. Employees say they want more autonomy and more freedom to be inventive to find great solutions and not be dictated to. This requires people to deeply understand what they are delivering.
Coaching all team members to brief and delegate in an outcomes-based way is one of the keys to successful hybrid working. Is this manager briefing or delegating in an outcomes-based way? Does the person understand the goal or objective of the task?
It’s a partnership that requires clarity at the outset, and measurability at the end.
Employees often feel anxious before a Personal Development review or check-in, and this anxiety is caused by lack of knowledge. They aren’t sure if they’ve done well or not because there is a lack of certainty about what ‘good’ really looks like.
Setting objectives that tangibly deliver against the agency’s goals provides real clarity and measurability. The trick is to set the right goals, and our objective-setting template and workflow provides a safe and hard-working method to equip all line managers.
With the IF X THEN Y partnership-based model, the conversation is made easy:
The best coaching is found in a series of questions, enabling the employee to think of their own fixes and answers. When supported by a solid plan, your line managers will sound like professional coaches and you will see great outcomes.
Capture the plan and crack on!
At each monthly check-in, the employee can capture the agreed next steps in their Career & Goal Planner, then both parties can crack on with the day. The employee will naturally be inspired to create a goal management habit, checking in to their planner on a daily or weekly basis to track their progress, determining actions that will help them move forward to achieving their objectives. A win-win partnership.
Go to the website SHOP to buy a copy of the Career & Goal Planner
It is also available on Amazon.
For bulk discounts with a free PDF copy of how to set up an Partnership PDP, please email hello@joannaanthony.com
I also offer consultancy and workshops to support teams to set up their Personal Development Programme, help with both business and employee objective-setting, create the tools for an effective programme, coach line managers on effective performance conversations and so much more. Contact me for more information.
I fix problems. With a long career in Client Services, I deeply understand the challenges and have a wealth of solutions to hand. I offer consultancy, audits, coaching and workshops to identify problems and solutions, as well as talks or workshop facilitation. Contact me via the form or email for a free 30 minute consultation: hello@joannaanthony.com.