Personal Development Plan

Personal Development Plan

This personal development plan will allow me to:

• Develop a greater awareness of myself and my work environment,
• Gather relevant information through career exploration,
• Set realistic career goals,
• Develop and implement career strategies to achieve my goals, and
• Appraise the effectiveness of my efforts.

I will apply the four approaches as outlined by Noe (2010). These strategies will
include formal education, assessments, job experiences and interpersonal relationships.

Assessments

I look at this approach as a prerequisite to any personal development process. As
the most important step in my personal development process, self-assessment will
assist me to understand my values, preferences and personality traits. This is key
to discovering the kind of work that will bring me personal fulfillment. Assessments
will help me identify and re-affirm what I already know about myself and help me
discover new things.  These assessments will give me an overall framework within
which I will be able to effectively strategize my career.

Formal education

I will be finalizing my MS IDT program in the next two months and will attend social
network marketing program to enhance the marketing skill. I will also ensure I attend
as many in-house training to take advantage of any existing opportunities. This formal
education will position me in line for promotion and expanded job role. In the future,
I plan to enroll in a Ph.D. program on training and performance improvement.

Job experience

Since upward mobility in my current employment is limited, I may have to look and
think outside the box. I will look for the opportunities available to me in my current
jobs.  I will seek alternative ways to help me develop a satisfying career in my
present job.  I may have to think creatively and look at career development from
a non-traditional view.  Among the options available to me is;

a) Job Enrichment: Job enrichment will involve vertically expanding your job with
additional responsibilities that may presently be undertaken by my supervisor.

b) Lateral Movement: Lateral movement may involve changing jobs but not necessarily
changing status, pay or level of responsibility. Such a move can broaden my base
of knowledge and skills and help me develop new competencies.

c) Job Enlargement: Job enlargement will involve expanding my job horizontally by
increasing the number of job tasks I perform.  The idea behind job enlargement will
be to increase job diversity.

d) Job Rotation: Job rotation is the movement between different jobs.  This career
strategy allows me to temporarily move laterally into other positions to broaden
my knowledge of other functions and departments in the organization.  Job rotation
will allows me to learn new skills and enables me to function in many different jobs.

Interpersonal relations;

This is when I will seek to develop my skills and knowledge by interacting with the
experienced members of staff. I will certainly pick a mentor who is successful and
experienced in the organization and in my career projectile. I will seek a formalized
mentoring process where my mentor will be clear on my expectations on him/her and
my aspirations.

References

inner architect . (2008 | , January 22). Employee Development: 5 Reasons “Why” It
Is Vital To Company Health and Longevity. Retrieved June 16, 2012, from inner architect
: http://innerarchitect.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/employee-development-5-reasons-why-it-is-vital-to-company-health-and-longevity/

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee Training and Development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw
Hill/Irwin.

Pace, A. (2010). Unleashing positivity in the workplace. Training and Development,
64(1), 40-44.