Professional Development

Professional Development Plan

The professional development plan is a tool that an individual can use to organize and plan their career. The plan will identify the individual’s goals and what steps they need to take to reach them. (www.hr.ucdavis.edu, 2010) Creating a professional development helps the individual determine their strengths as well as areas where improvement is in order to meet their goals. The plan becomes a roadmap for the individual to reach their professional or personal goals and gives management a clear idea of where that employee wants to go and allows management to actively participate in nurturing and growing that employee. The plan is important to have for both managers and employees alike and identify skills and competencies that need improvement as well as identify the necessary resources to help the employee grow and improve. Companies that encourage the personal and professional growth and development of their employees benefit as the employees carry new skills and abilities back to the workplace. Those companies also experience higher levels of employee loyalty when employees feel supported in reaching their goals. (Bigelow, 2014) Professional development planning is not a one-time event, but rather a continually evolving plan that is often and updated whenever needed. To create a development plan for Team C, each member, including the manager, took the DISC assessment to determine the personality styles of each. The plan will address each team member’s strengths and weaknesses as they relate to their personality to determine proper job placement as well as establishing effective communication between all members.

After each team member had completed the assessment, the individual results were compiled to create a combined DISC chart that details the characteristics of each team member, as well as the manager. Each member of Team C was plotted on a graph according to their individual assessment results.