Employees who cannot see a clear development path leave. Not immediately — first they disengage, become less proactive, and eventually accept the offer from the organisation that appeared to care about their growth. The pattern is consistent and costly, and almost entirely avoidable with one thing most managers acknowledge matters but few do systematically: a structured, documented, collaboratively built Employee Development Plan. An EDP is not a list of training courses. It is a framework for understanding where an employee is now, where they want to go, what skills and experiences they need to get there, and how the manager and organisation will support that journey. This free employee development plan checklist gives managers and HR teams a structured process for creating, implementing, and reviewing development plans that are genuinely useful — specific, measurable, collaborative, and connected to both the employee’s career goals and the organisation’s strategic needs.
Research from Mercer’s 2024–25 Skills Snapshot Survey found that 62% of organisations plan to rebuild their job architectures around skills within two years. High-maturity development organisations — those with structured, continuous development programmes — achieve 2.1 times higher employee engagement and 1.6 times stronger retention than peers. The cost of not investing in development is not a training budget saved. It is the cost of replacing the employees who leave because they could not see a future with you.
The most effective development programmes are also not primarily about formal training. Research consistently shows that roughly 70% of meaningful professional development comes from on-the-job experience — stretch assignments, new responsibilities, cross-functional projects. 20% comes from others — coaching, mentoring, peer feedback. Only 10% comes from formal training events. An employee development plan that consists only of a list of courses to attend misses 90% of the development opportunity. A structured EDP that deliberately designs on-the-job growth and coaching relationships alongside formal learning is the approach that actually develops people.
This checklist covers seven phases of the employee development planning process — from initial assessment and goal-setting through learning pathway design, implementation, and regular review. Run it collaboratively with the employee — it is a shared planning process, not a manager-to-employee download.
The development conversation is the foundation of the plan. It works when it is a genuine two-way conversation about aspirations and honest about current gaps — not a manager presenting a predetermined development agenda to an employee.
A development goal that says “improve communication skills” is not a goal — it is a wish. A development goal that says “lead the Q3 client presentation independently by September” is specific enough to work towards and measure.
Most development budgets go to formal training. Most development happens on the job and through relationships. Design the plan to reflect how development actually works — not how it is easiest to budget for.
This checklist is available as a free, runnable template in CheckFlow — with development plan tasks shared between manager and employee, progress tracked against each goal, and quarterly review conversations scheduled automatically as a recurring checklist.
Use this template freeMost organisations spend their development budget almost entirely on formal training — courses, workshops, certifications. Research consistently shows this delivers roughly 10% of meaningful professional development. The rest comes from experience and relationships.
What it looks like: Stretch assignments above the employee’s current comfort level. Leading a project they have not led before. Taking on a new area of responsibility. Cross-functional work. Secondments to another team or department. Representing the team externally for the first time.
Why it works: Development embedded in real work is immediately applicable, contextually relevant, and produces results alongside the development — unlike training, which must be transferred back into the real world.
Manager’s role: Deliberately design stretch into the employee’s work. Brief well. Debrief after. Create safety to fail and recover.
What it looks like: A mentor who has navigated the career path the employee aspires to. Regular structured coaching conversations with the manager. Peer feedback from colleagues. Shadowing more experienced colleagues. Participating in professional networks and communities of practice.
Why it works: Relationships accelerate development by providing specific, contextualised guidance that formal training cannot. A mentor who has made the mistakes saves the mentee from making them.
Manager’s role: Identify and introduce appropriate mentors. Hold regular coaching conversations — not just performance updates. Give specific, actionable feedback regularly.
What it looks like: Courses, certifications, workshops, conferences, e-learning programmes, and structured training events.
Why it works: Formal training is most effective for foundational knowledge and frameworks that create the conceptual structure for on-the-job application. It is least effective when used as a substitute for on-the-job development or when it is not applied to real work immediately afterwards.
Manager’s role: Select formal training that is directly applicable to current work. Brief the employee before and debrief after. Confirm there is an immediate opportunity to apply the learning.
An employee development plan built only on formal training misses 90% of the development opportunity. CheckFlow’s development plan template explicitly structures all three elements — on-the-job, relationships, and formal learning — so nothing is left to chance.
Development plans that only exist in the manager’s system are manager plans, not employee plans. CheckFlow’s shared checklist gives both the manager and the employee visibility into the development plan — goals, activities, progress, and upcoming milestones. The employee can update their progress, add learning reflections, and track their own development journey. Ownership shifts from the manager to the employee — where it belongs.
Development plans drafted at the annual review and revisited twelve months later are development plans in name only. CheckFlow’s recurring checklist feature schedules quarterly development check-ins automatically — creating a new review task for the manager and employee at the right cadence, sending reminders when the check-in is due, and ensuring development conversations happen regularly rather than annually.
Every development goal set, every activity completed, and every milestone achieved is logged in CheckFlow with a timestamp. When a promotion decision, a succession planning review, or a talent assessment requires evidence of an employee’s development trajectory, the complete record is immediately available — not reconstructed from memory or scattered across email threads and annual review documents.
Employee development plans work best when they build on a clear foundation of expectations. CheckFlow’s Employee Expectations Checklist covers the structured expectations-setting conversation that precedes the development plan — ensuring both manager and employee have agreed what is expected now before planning what comes next. See the Employee Expectations Checklist →
For organisations developing new training programmes to support employee development goals, CheckFlow’s New Course Development Checklist covers the full ADDIE process for building effective training — from needs analysis through to evaluation of learning outcomes. See the New Course Development Checklist →
Describe the process in a sentence and the AI checklist generator drafts the phases and tasks for you.
A comprehensive employee development plan covers seven areas: a development conversation and needs assessment (the collaborative discussion that identifies aspirations, strengths, and development areas); a current skills assessment (mapping current capabilities against role requirements and career aspirations); SMART development goal-setting (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals that serve both employee and organisational needs); a learning pathway design using the 70-20-10 model (70% on-the-job, 20% from others, 10% formal training); resource and support identification (budget, time, manager commitments, mentor access); plan implementation and progress tracking; and regular review and plan update. The plan should be co-created by the employee and manager, documented in writing, and reviewed at least quarterly.
The 70-20-10 model is an empirically-derived framework for how effective professional development actually happens. It proposes that roughly 70% of meaningful professional development comes from on-the-job experience — challenging assignments, new responsibilities, leading projects outside the employee’s comfort zone, and cross-functional exposure. 20% comes from learning from others — mentoring, coaching, peer feedback, and professional networks. 10% comes from formal training events such as courses, certifications, and workshops. The practical implication is that development plans built primarily around training courses miss 90% of the development opportunity. Effective development plans deliberately design stretch experiences and coaching relationships alongside formal learning — using training to build the conceptual framework and on-the-job experience to develop genuine capability.
Development plans should be reviewed at least quarterly — more frequently for employees in their first 90 days, new to a development area, or working towards a time-sensitive goal. Quarterly reviews confirm progress is on track, identify any barriers that have emerged, adjust activities that are not working, and maintain momentum. Annual reviews update the plan for the next year — setting new goals, assessing the impact of completed development on actual capability, and confirming whether the employee’s career aspirations have evolved. A development plan that is only reviewed annually is not a development plan — it is an annual administrative requirement that produces minimal development. CheckFlow’s recurring checklist feature schedules quarterly review conversations automatically.
A performance review assesses how well the employee is performing against their current role’s expectations and KPIs — looking backward at what was achieved and rating performance against agreed standards. A development review focuses on growth — looking forward at where the employee wants to go, what skills they are developing, what support they need, and whether the development plan is on track. Both conversations are important, but they serve different purposes and require different mindsets. Combining them in a single meeting tends to mean performance dominates and development is addressed briefly at the end. Treating them as separate conversations gives development the dedicated attention that produces genuine growth.
The development conversation is the right starting point. Employees who are uncertain about their career direction benefit from structured reflection rather than a plan that assumes a clear destination. Useful questions include: what kind of work energises you most? What problems do you most enjoy solving? What do colleagues consistently come to you for? What would you want to be doing in five years if you knew you could not fail? Development goals for employees who are uncertain about direction can focus on exploration — deliberately taking on a variety of stretch assignments to discover what resonates, having conversations with people in roles they might aspire to, and building breadth before committing to a specific direction.
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