Professional Development Plans: Identifying an Employee’s Competencies, Gaps and Weaknesses
A professional development plan should be a collaborative effort. It’s the best way to ensure focus on the competencies most critical to the learner’s growth and development as well as alignment with the organizations goals and objectives. Managers can and should be involved in coaching and developing their employees and employees should be comfortable and proactive in asking their managers for input or guidance as they create a plan for their growth and development.When you work with your employees on their personal development plans, it’s important to objectively identify their competencies, gaps and weaknesses in order to get a clear picture of where they stand and how they can develop their skills.Here are some ways to do just that.
Identifying an Employee's Competencies
Generally speaking, a "competency" is a skill or behavior that describes excellent performance. These are the strengths your employee has -- the things she excels at and the good reasons people think of her when there’s a job to be done. They're the characteristics your best employees will use to achieve success in their careers.When working with an employee to identify target competencies, it's important to know what core competencies are necessary for success -- both in the employee’s current role, and in a role at the next level with more responsibilities or contributions. It can be helpful to go over past performance reviews where you or other managers have recorded her outstanding attributes. This can help start a list as you brainstorm together or separately.Competencies necessary for performance and success are typically a combination of both “hard” and “soft” skills. Hard skills are the functional and technical skills needed to do a job and get results. What we generally call soft skills include interpersonal savvy, creativity, communication, integrity, peer relationships, and so on.Your employee may be an excellent proofreader, an unusually savvy problem-solver and someone who is very easy to get along with. All of these qualities have a place on a list of competencies.
Identifying an Employee's Gaps
If there's a significant difference between the importance of a competency in your employee’s job and the skill level he has in that competency, this is identified as a “gap.”It’s helpful to assign ratings on a five-point scale to each competency required for a position, and then rate the employee’s skill level in that competency to identify the gap involved. For example, if the importance of a proofreading competency for your employee’s job is rated a 4 and his skill level is at a 2, he has a significant gap for this competency.Depending on the competency, gaps may or may not be something to include on an employee’s development plan. Competencies with high importance and a low skill level should take priority over those of lower importance and an average skill level, for example. Whether a gap is included on the development plan will depend on the job, employee and competency involved.
Identifying an Employee's Weaknesses
A "weakness" is a competency in which the employee has little or no skills. That may be the result of lack of training, experience or even interest.These often appear when you begin to consider an employee’s career trajectory. For example, if your proofreader wants to be promoted to the next level, such as editor, the development plan may find that she has a weakness in editing raw copy, and so developing this competency may be included in her professional development plan.Success Labs is a full-service, strategic organizational and leadership development company located in Baton Rouge, La. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.
