Professional Development Plan Template [Free Download]

What is the goal of a professional development plan?

There are a few ways you can unleash your employees’ true potential using a well-executed PDP. Here are some of the leading reasons why great leaders will always invest time in this important document.

Upskilling employees

When you invest in learning and development, you’re encouraging your team to take on new skills that can help them perform better in their roles.

Whatever you’re focusing on, whether it’s time management, strategy, digital adoption or training in a new software, your employee is going to grow and expand their horizons. It’s a personal win for them and a huge win for your business.

Internal promotions

Every business should want to retain employees for the long-term. Not only is it a great thing to have someone achieve career progression, your business will also benefit from maintaining internal knowledge. It’ll save you cost and time spent on recruiting new staff.

When you promote internally, you support the individual team member in achieving their career goals. You’re also sending a message to both current and future employees. Your business is the kind of business that celebrates and rewards hard work, which makes it a place that top performers will want to work.

Employee retention

Have you ever heard of a ‘flight risk employee’? These are the members of your team who might have one foot out the door and may already be looking for opportunities elsewhere.

Most of the time, flight risk employees feel disconnected from their roles. They aren’t excited about their future with the business and often feel unappreciated for the work they do.

A PDP can open up an employee’s eyes to what’s possible for them with your business, reducing a desire to jump ship.

What types of professional development plans are there?

There are a range of different professional development plans (PDP) that can be used at various stages of an employee’s career journey. These include:

• Onboarding plans: Best used when a new employee is starting with your business. Helps to set the tone of their time with your company, so they can get up and running fast.
• Leadership development plans: Believe an employee could be a future leader? A leadership development plan can help outline the skills they need to step into a more senior role, including people management, strategic thinking and decision-making skills. 
• Technical skills plans: If your company requires employees to have specialised skills, or you’re looking to upskill an employee, then a technical skills plan can highlight where their current strengths are. It can also identify areas for improvement. 
• Succession planning: Like a leadership development plan, succession planning helps you identify and nurture future leaders within your business, so they are ready to assume a more senior position if and when the time comes. 
• Performance improvement plans: You can use performance improvement plans when an employee’s performance is not meeting expectations. Rather than using a PIP as a form of discipline, they’re a structured way for you to provide more support to employees that need it.

How often should professional development plans be reviewed and updated?

PDPs should be reviewed at least twice a year, though we’d recommend reviewing them quarterly so goals and timelines stay relevant. PDPs are designed to evolve and shift as business goals change and as employees take on new responsibilities, so more frequent reviews can keep your PDPs relevant.

When reviewing and updating PDPs, you may want to consider things like:

• Are the goals outlined in this PDP still relevant to your employee? Why/why not?
• How have they been working towards these goals? Do they need any extra support?
• Do these goals still align with the overall business strategy? If not, how can they be adapted?
• Is there anything preventing the employee from achieving these goals? If so, how can these roadblocks be navigated?

Having structured timeframes to review PDPs can help but they can also be updated based on more informal discussions, like one-on-ones and monthly goal-setting sessions. Ultimately, PDPs are never set in stone. Instead they’re living documents, designed to help keep employees engaged, both within their role and as part of the company’s growth.

Examples of professional development plan goals

Wondering what goals could be included in a professional development plan? Here are some examples of things your employees may want to work towards in the short, medium or long-term future.

How to motivate employees to follow through on PDP goals

Setting PDP goals is one thing, but helping your employees stay motivated to achieve those goals is another. Here are some ways you can keep your employees engaged, so they can complete their PDPs with flying colours.

• Involve them in goal-setting: PDP goals should reflect business needs but they should be guided by how your employees want to grow. Including them in the goal-setting process can help them feel more involved.
• Recognise small wins: We all like to be celebrated (even if we pretend we don’t). Noticing your unsung heroes when they make steps to work towards their PDP goals can help keep them motivated.
• Use 1:1s to keep them accountable: As part of an ongoing performance management process, regular 1:1s can help both you and your employees track their PDP goals, and identify where they might need assistance.
• Link goals to performance reviews/OKRs: PDP goals shouldn’t exist by themselves. Use them to assess your employees as part of their performance reviews, or link them to their Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to make the goals feel more tangible.
• Provide manager support: Your employees should never feel alone. If they’re struggling with achieving their PDP goals, providing structured support can help keep them on track.

Who should be involved in creating a PDP?

HR or Learning & Development (L&D)

Depending on your business’ structure, either HR or L&D should be the team members who design the framework for the company’s PDPs.

Managers

Managers will know your employees best. Managers should be the ones that guide individual plans and help employees action them.

Employees

As the subjects of the PDP, employees should undertake self-reflection, as well as collaborate with their manager to craft the details of the PDP.

Leadership

Ultimately, all PDPs will be guided by the overall strategic direction of the business. While leadership doesn’t need to be involved in the PDPs at an individual level, they do need to ensure strategic alignment. This ensures that the goals employees are working towards are in step with the future of the company. 

How does a PDP support retention and engagement?

According to a 2025 survey by Randstad, 62% of New Zealand employees feel motivated and engaged. 37% reported this was because they felt valued by their team and manager, while 32% said it was because of growth opportunities. By developing PDPs for your employees, you’re demonstrating to them that you’re invested in their long-term growth. PDPs are a way of providing achievable internal promotion pathways, while ensuring the support you’re providing is aligned with your team’s short, medium and long-term career goals. 

Employee retention has many benefits for your business too. Keeping your top performers doesn’t just reduce training and onboarding costs, but helps keep key business knowledge within your company. When you work towards helping your employees succeed in their careers, the business also thrives. It’s a win-win all round.

How can a PDP help employees grow professionally?

Identify skill gaps

When talking through a PDP with your team members, measure their one, five and ten year goals against where they are now. Chances are there will be a significant gap in skills between where they are now and what they want to be. Make a list of what these professional skills are and how they can be gained, whether that’s through courses or certifications.

Adopt new responsibilities

A PDP will help you and your team members gain a better understanding of particular areas of interest within their role, which can help you find new responsibilities for them. For example, maybe they enjoy project management aspects of their work. Could you delegate more of your management tasks to help them further this interest?

Create promotion stepping stones

Do you have a team member who wants to pursue development opportunities but may not be ready to take the step into a promotion yet? Don’t sweep their ambitions under the rug. Use a PDP to outline clear steps that they need to take in order to be ready to take that next step.

How do you write a professional development plan?

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. Send your team members our free template to get started – download the template using the form to the right.

If you do feel inclined to create your own professional development plan then you can follow these steps to craft an effective PDP.

Step 1. Start with employee goals

Discuss career aspirations, by asking questions like “Where do you see yourself in 1-3 years?” Identify needed skills to understand the employee’s development priorities.

Step 2. Encourage self-reflection

Guide employees to assess their strengths, areas for improvement, and job performance. A self-assessment fosters ownership and provides a baseline for growth.

Step 3. Analyse development needs

Pinpoint key skills and knowledge gaps using performance reviews, feedback, and assessments. Identify specific competencies required for the employee’s goals.

Step 4. Use a template

Adopt a structured PDP template that includes:

• Goals
• Required skills
• Action steps
• Timelines
• Evaluation checkpoints

Step 5. Set SMART goals

Create specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals that align personal aspirations with organisational objectives.

Step 6. Develop an action plan

Break down goals into actionable steps. For example, leadership development may involve taking a course, shadowing a senior leader or leading a team project.

Step 7. Customise the plan

Tailor the PDP to the employee’s role, career stage and unique aspirations.

Step 8. Recommend learning resources

Suggest tools like online courses, workshops, mentorships or networking opportunities to help achieve goals.

Step 9. Set timelines

Establish deadlines for each step to keep the employee focused and motivated.

Step 10. Review and adjust regularly

Schedule periodic check-ins to:

• Track progress
• Celebrate milestones
• Update the plan as goals and circumstances evolve

A well-structured PDP fosters growth, engagement and alignment between employee ambitions and organisational success.

Examples of good professional development goals

Every goal will be unique to your team members’ ambitions and your business’ needs. However, if you or your team members are looking for inspiration, take a peek at some of the most common personal development goals.

1. Step into a people management position

Taking the step from being an independent professional to being a manager requires a huge new skill set. Not only do you have to learn how to manage various workloads and plans, you also need to be capable of communicating clearly, keeping track of HR matters and being cognizant of others’ professional, and often emotional, needs. It’s a big undertaking which can be supported through steps outlined in a PDP.

2. Take over key projects

Maybe your team member is not so interested in a managerial position but they would like to take on special projects that currently sit outside of their day-to-day work. Taking steps to take control of these projects might include learning new skills or tools, or building relationships with internal or external project stakeholders.

3. Complete a relevant certification

Imagine how the finance arm of your business would benefit from having a certified accountant on the team. Or maybe your marketing team needs someone with a Google certification. Certifications require work from the employee and time (and sometimes financial) support from the company, but they are a great way to add value to your business.

4. Expand your professional brand

Thought leadership is a great way for members of your team to grow professionally and become even more of an asset for your business. Expanding their professional brand could look like your team member growing their network on LinkedIn, attending professional events on behalf of the business, appearing on panels or podcasts, giving interviews as a subject matter expert or writing articles.

5. Side-step into a new role in a different area of the business

Throughout their careers, employees often evolve their interests. At your business, a team member may have been exposed to a new role through their colleagues and now they might consider it a good career path for them. For example, someone in your sales team might wish to move into marketing. Or someone in your operations team might be curious about HR. Why not keep their knowledge of the company within the business and support their move to another team?

How do you motivate employees to learn new skills?

Motivating employees to grow is crucial for their professional development. Involving them in creating their career development plan fosters engagement and empowerment. Remember, a PDP should be collaborative between managers and their employees. Managers should think of themselves as a guide, aligning the team member’s ambitions with the needs of the business.

Outside of a PDP, how else can you keep employees motivated?

One-on-one (1:1) Meetings

After putting together a PDP, it’s easy to file it away and forget about it. But a PDP is no use to your staff member if it’s locked away and not regularly discussed.

Make discussing your PDP a regular part of your 1:1 meetings. Check in on their progress, give constructive feedback and identify any actionable items to be completed for the coming weeks or months.

Need help getting your 1:1s organised? Use our free 1:1 meeting template and check out our favourite 1:1 questions

Set goals

Setting goals can help put your employee’s PDP into motion, lifting them off the page and making them easier to work towards. For best results, we recommend using a goal setting framework. At Employment Hero we like Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), as they help us stay aligned and motivated as a team. Learn more about OKRs.

Reward the small wins

Sometimes when you’re working towards big professional development goals, it can feel like you’re trekking up a mountain. You might have ticked off a few actions, but you still have a long way to go.

Although the development milestone is the ultimate win, managers and leaders should recognise the effort in the journey. This might look like giving the employee a public shout-out in a meeting, expressing your gratitude in a private meeting, writing them a personalised note or organising a small gift.

Other useful employee development plan templates

Performance review template bundle – Giving employee feedback is crucial in building a high-performing team and you’ll want to provide it consistently to ensure that it’s effective. We’ve created these performance review templates for managers, to help guide conversations with your direct reports.

Goal setting template – If your team member has big ambitions for this year, don’t encourage them to rely on sheer motivation alone to achieve them. Instead, work with your employee to create a solid plan for success by using this goal-setting template.

Performance improvement plan template – Do you have a team member who is falling behind? Maybe the quality of their work has taken a tumble or they’re not meeting the basic requirements of their role? It’s a tough scenario for managers and employees to be in, but there are ways that you can improve the situation. A performance improvement plan is one of the most common tools that employers use to help their team members recover their performance.

Employee coaching plan template – Learning at work can help employees tackle unique challenges, spark new ideas, build confidence and keep their skills relevant. It’s always been an essential part of employee engagement and in the current climate, its relevance is even more prominent. This employee coaching template can help further your employees’ personal and professional growth.

Ready to supercharge your team’s professional development?

Whether you’re looking to mentor excellent team members, want to plan for the future, or just make sure you’re providing the right support, our development plan template can help your company excel. Take a key step towards a more engaged workforce, and download your copy of our free development plan template.