Personal Development

Personal and Professional Development

Below is an example of a PDP:

Name: Alex Smith Personal Development Plan

Job title: Senior Supervisor

Relevant Professional and Vocational Qualifications:

A level business studies, GCSE economics.
Qualified First Aider
PTTLS (training qualification), qualified H&S induction trainer
Level 2 Team Leading
Level 2 Customer Service
Level 3 Diploma in Management (part way through)

Part 1 – Personal Analysis Weaknesses

Strengths Can get distracted by interruptions – e.g., colleagues
wanting something.
Good listener, good communicator with team and Do not enjoy repetitive routine.
customers Get frustrated when people waste my time.
Organised and able to meet deadlines. Feel that team members take advantage of me
Planning and allocation of tasks sometimes.
Training – new and established team members Spending too much of my free time doing work jobs to
Coordinating and planning resources needed by catch up – e.g., emails and reports for 1-2 hours each
team. evening at home
Confident following recruitment process Time-management skills
Dealing with customer complaints (when team Work-life balance
members need to escalate)

Opportunities Threats

Possibility of a takeover by a larger organisation Weakening Economy
Planned team growth – good opportunity to Value of the pound against other currencies
develop Leadership skills further. Worldwide unrest
Possible coaching and mentoring development
opportunities.
Growth in marketplace for the products
New businesses in the area due to inward
investment
Upskilling courses on offer

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 51

Personal and Professional Development

Part 2 – Setting Objectives

Objective Action Resources and How to measure Timescale and
support
mechanisms success review dates

Finish L3 5 more units to go Approx. 70 hours of Finish each 10 study hours per
apprenticeship in – complete 1 per study needed to assessment. week if possible – so
Learning and week finish – plus review Tutor feedback – end of May, mid-
Development time. work on weak areas June at the latest.
Computer and & resubmit if Course tutor review
Internet access necessary. booked next week
Ask course tutor for L3 awarded
extra feedback and
support if necessary

Improve my time Arrange coaching Next unit on L3 Less chaotic diary Next L3 unit will be
management and self-study course covers this. Reduction in stress done by mid-April.
Ask line manager for Less work at home Review & ask for
coaching afterwards in the evenings coaching if needed
if needed end June

Recruitment, training

and performance

records for last 12 Smooth transition to Review past records

Review records months next stage with new – by mid-June.
and data to track
team changes. Recruitment & staff Develop plan – by
Develop plan for
Develop planning next stage of training plans for Team members’ end June.
and strategy skills change
next 12 months performance Review team’s

Customer and team records – to check progress &

feedback reports quality, output and performance –

Line manager for skills gaps ongoing

support and

feedback

Find ways to avoid

too much

repetitive work –

Maintain my e.g., delegate Good team members Job satisfaction will Ask for extra
motivation, appraisal review
enthusiasm and some tasks once Allocating sufficient be maintained. end July (approx. a
energy month after L3
they are time Feedback from study has finished)

established. Discussion time with manager will help

Set new goals line manager me to focus

every so often.

Discuss with line

manager

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 52

Personal and Professional Development

Part 3 – Personal Objectives
Short-term goals (next 3 months)

Finish L3 leadership and management
Start to prepare for having larger team.
Improve time management and stop working at home so much

Medium-term goals (next 12 months)

Consolidate current role this year and develop management skills with the larger team.
Start to discuss and plan promotion opportunities for next year

Long-term goals (beyond 12 months)

Promotion to customer services manager
Do a level 4 course – check funding nearer the time

There are a number of things that are vital in supporting your personal development, including developing a
vision of where you want to be, and planning how you are going to get there.

But alongside these, it is also helpful to take some simple but practical steps to change how you organise your
life. These changes will help to give you more time and space to manage your personal development activities.
Without that, you may struggle to find the time and energy to improve your skills or study.

When creating a Personal Development Plan, it is essential to make sure it accurately outlines your personal
goals, why they are important to you, and how you plan to achieve them.

Although all PDPs are specific to each individual, the plan will generally detail your ideal future based on your
short and/or long-term ambitions. Areas of development will be specific to you, and could be centred on work,
education, or self-improvement.

It should also always recognise the potential obstacles you might face, and how you propose to overcome them
– and if the roadblocks cannot be tackled, include a contingency plan to help your career keep moving forward.

The PDP can also contain SWOT analyses, SMART objectives and other action plans about how to develop skills,
knowledge, understanding and experience in the future.

When preparing a PDP, you will need to have identified:

• clear SMART objectives – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound
• resource requirements – e.g., learning activities, training materials or courses.
• timescales and finances – e.g., work and study deadlines or course fees
• support mechanisms – e.g., line manager, course tutor, workplace mentor or coach

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 53

Personal and Professional Development

Personal Development Plan (PDP)

A PDP is a document that is based on awareness, values, reflection, goal setting and planning for personal
development. This can be at work, in education or in the context of self-improvement.

Employees who are taking part in personal, professional, development are typically asked to record their
development by completing a PDP.

A Personal Development Plan is a written summary of self-refelection used to identify ways to achieve the
academic, personal, or career-based goals identified as a result. This then formas an action plan of how those
goals can be achieved.

Objectives are put in place, based on the areas you would like to improve, and the plan consists of your own
personalised actions that will help you to achieve them.

A PDP is simply a plan, just like any other plan. The only difference is that it relates specifically to you.

When you first start thinking about personal development, it can seem as if you
know nothing, and have no skills. You may find this point rather overwhelming!
But it is important to bear two things in mind:

You do have skills. You have been learning and developing all your life, and you
already have many, many skills.

You do not have to improve everything all at once. In fact, you are much better
off not trying to do that.

Focus on just one or two areas at a time, and you will see much larger
improvements, and also feel less overwhelmed.

There is a reason why personal development is sometimes called ‘lifelong
learning’: there is no time limit on it!

An effective Personal and Professional Developmnet Plan will include:

A clear vision of where you want to be and why.
It is helpful to think about where you want to be and what you want to do. It can be
useful to think in terms of different lengths of time: for example, one month, six
months, one year, five years

The vision should be as detailed as possible, across all spheres of life:

• career
• where you want to live
• hobbies
• even relationships

The more detail included, right down to how you will feel about it, the easier it will be to hold onto your vision
when times are hard.

Knowledge of the skills needing development in order to achieve the vision

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 54

Personal and Professional Development

The next step to your personal development plan is to think about what skills you need to develop, and why
this is important to achieving your vision.
For example:

• Do you need certain skills to get a particular job, or to advance in your chosen career?
• Are you planning to live abroad, and therefore need to develop your language skills?
• Are you struggling to manage a particular situation, and need new skills to help?
• Have you been told that you lack particular skills and need to develop them to work effectively

with others, or on your own?

It is important to ensure the skills being targeted are clearly linked to a purpose, which is in turn linked to the
vision. Without this level of clarity, any personal development efforts may fail. It is vital to concentrate on the
right skills and be fully aware of timescales involved.

A clear idea of the expected standard and how current performance differs from that.
The difference between current performance and desired performance, details the scale of the task. It also
affects th duration and the effort needed to complete it.

If you are planning to move abroad in a year’s time, or go travelling, you may need to develop your language
skills. But, if you have already lived in that country for a period and speak the language well, you may not need
to do more than keep your language skills up via listening to foreign radio.

If, however, you have never learnt the language, and you are starting from scratch, you may need some
intensive language tuition, or even an immersion course, to ensure that your skills develop quickly enough.

A level of priority for each area

You cannot do everything at once.

Instead, you need to prioritise. One very good way to do this is to
list all your areas for development, then ask yourself two questions
about each one, answering on a scale of one to five:

• How important is this to me?
• How essential is it to develop it now?

Combine the scores for the two questions for each area and it will indicate which areas to focus on first,
because they are either more important, or they are more time critical.

Leave the other areas for a later date: next year, or even a few years’ time.

A detailed idea of how to get from where you are now for each goal, to where you want to be
It sounds straightforward, however, you need to know how you are going to get from (a) to (b): where you are
now, to where you want to be? Are you going to enrol on a course? Learn online, go to college or attend an
evening class?

Just as with your vision, it can be helpful to break this down by time: in a month/six months/a year, what will
you have done on the way to your ultimate goals? This makes it easier to check your progress and keep
yourself on track.

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 55

Personal and Professional Development

Planning and delivering your personal development can be thought of as personal strategic thinking and
planning – where do you want to be, and how will you get there?

1. Why are you trying to develop?

It is important to understand why you are trying to develop.

The answers to all the questions about ‘what’ and ‘where’ (what should I do? Should I address my weaknesses,
or build my strengths? Where should I begin?) all become clearer once you identify why you want to change. It
is important to be clear about this purpose, so that you can assess whether your
learning and development activities are moving you closer to your goals. It is also easier to get motivated when
you have a clear picture of where you want to be at the end of the process.

2. Planning your development

Planning and documenting personal development will help make it more realistic.

There is something about writing things down that makes the overambitious look ridiculous, and the unrealistic
stand out like a sore thumb.

Planning for your personal development, which includes time limits and stages of development, will force you
to be realistic about what you can achieve by when.

A written plan provides a way of keeping tabs on goals, even formally altering them if necessary.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I
needed to be. Douglas Adams

3. Documenting your plans

Writing down your plans and activities enables you to review your progress.

By documneting personal development plans and activities, it will not only enable progress to be reviewed, but
also provides a record of your thinking over time.

It is incredibly easy to forget how you felt about things at different stages, and even why you thought a
particular goal was important. Carefully documenting your thinking will help to show you what works best,
what you have enjoyed and disliked, and quite probably point you towards more suitable activities or areas for
development.

4. What works for you?

It is important to establish which development methods work best for you.

There are an enormous range of development activities available, from formal training sessions, through online
training to experiential learning, reading and discussing ideas with others. As with anything, it is important to
find out what works best for you—as in, what you enjoy most and also what helps you to learn and develop
quickly and effectively.

5. Focus

What is really important in your personal development?

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 56

Personal and Professional Development

Use your vision to identify what really matters now — what you have to do first to achieve your vision — and
concentrate on that. Only once you have achieved that, or at least made reasonable progress, should you
move on.

6. Grasp new opportunities

Do not be afraid to take opportunities that you had not considered before.

Not everything in life, or personal development, is predictable. Sometimes you may be offered an amazing
opportunity to do something that does not fit with your immediate priorities, but which sounds too good to
miss. It is worth considering whether taking this opportunity will slow down your progress towards your
ultimate goal and, if so, whether that matters. It is not worth turning something down simply because you
have never thought of doing it, and therefore it does not feature in your ‘life plans’.

Ultimately, being offered this kind of opportunity probably helps you to define your goals better: if it sounds
very exciting and you really want to do it, then do. If it changes your goal and vision, so be it.

Our biggest regrets are not for the things we have done but for the
things we have not done. Chad Michael Murray

7. Let personal development evolve

Your priorities will change — and that is OK

Few, if any, of us would say that we were exactly the same person at 35 that we were at 15, or even 25. As you
grow and change, taking on new responsibilities in work or at home, so your priorities and goals will change.

The key is to recognise that this is fine.

Regular review and revision of your personal development activities and plans will ensure that they change
with your priorities and remain relevant.

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 57

Personal and Professional Development

Continuing Professional Development Log (CPD)

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the term used to describe the learning activities professionals
engage in to develop and enhance their abilities. It enables learning to become conscious and proactive, rather
than passive and reactive. It may include life-long learning, maintaining the currency of skills and knowledge,
developing occupational effectiveness, impact and achievement.

CPD is the commitment of professionals to the enhancement of their personal and professional
knowledge, skills and proficiency throughout their careers.

A CPD log combines and records the different methodologies undertaken for learning, such as training
workshops, conferences and events, e-learning programs, best practice techniques and ideas sharing,
completed by an individual over a period of time.

Development recorded in the PDP is transferred to the CPD Log when it has been satisfactorily completed.

By undertaking CPD, academic and practical qualifications do not become obsolete, allowing individuals to
continually ‘up skill’ or ‘re-skill’ themselves, regardless of occupation, age or educational level, thereby
maintaining their occupational competence.

Benefits of CPD.

For Individuals
CPD helps individuals focus on how they can become a more competent and effective professional.
Training and learning increase confidence and overall capability, and underpin career progression.

CPD enables employees to adapt to changes in work/industry requirements.

Recording CPD provides evidence of professional development (this can be useful for supervision and
appraisals).

A CPD log evidences the individuals commitment to self-development and professionalism.

For Organisations
Providing learning benefits the organisation by promoting a healthy learning culture leading to a more
fulfilled workforce and retaining valuable staff.

Employees may have an obligation to undertake CPD as a member of a professional body.

Allocating Time for CPD

Most professional bodies generally define Continuing Professional Development requirements as a minimum
number of hours each year. CPD hours can also be converted to points, units or credits. Most institutions
allow members to choose subjects of relevance to them as individuals, a minority also require their members to
seek CPD on a range of core subjects.

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 58

Personal and Professional Development

Recording CPD

An individual must record their annual Continuing Professional Development using a CPD log and must ensure it
is correct, mainatined and meets the requirements of their professional body or association.

The Cost of Personal and Professional Development

Anything which is beneficial in our lives almost always comes at a cost and that is also true of Development.
There can be a personal cost as well as a cost for the organisation. It is, however, true to say that the cost of
development is often far outweighed by the benefits it brings.

The costs of development can include any or all of the following:

• Financial cost of the training
• Time spent on training.
• Expenses involved in attending the training.
• The cost of providing mentors and coaches.
• Loss of production whilst training.
• Cost of replacement staff.

There may also be additional cost regarding resources. It maybe that new software or machinery needs to be
purchased to facilitate the development. It may be that structural alterations may be needed to facilitate this
or additional resources such as PPE may need to be purchased. It may require that other staff need to be
trained first to bring them to a standard whereby they can perform the task being left vacant by another staff
member taking up their development.

© ice-training 11/2021 ver. 1 59