Personal Development in the Work Place

Development is any activity or experience that helps an individual to grow, gain new skills, gain insight, and learn. By working with your team and using a number of techniques such as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based (SMART) targets, you can successfully identify and improve the developmental needs of individuals within your team.

Personal development is a self-managed, lifelong commitment to oneself. It is a way for someone to reflect on their potential, access further developmental training, and set goals in order to improve their development.

It is a way to help update learning and skills within the workplace or within personal lives.

Understand the importance of promoting personal development.

Promoting personal development within the workplace is important to an organization, as it:

Improve effectiveness within the company. For instance, I know that I need to refine my skills in facial prosthetics, as this is the least common type of prosthetic that we make. By practicing these skills during downtime, when I have no patients, I can build confidence in this area. This, in turn, will result in improved confidence when asked to complete this type of job, increased time efficiency as I improve this skill, and the provision of superior treatment to the patient.

It increases staff morale and decreases the need to recruit. Having a development plan will help to ensure that staff feel valued, positive, and confident in their abilities, and secure within a career role rather than a short-term job role. As a result, staff do not leave to go to other hospitals or jobs, and the organisation is less likely to recruit, thus saving money and time.

“Benefits to the Individual of Personal Development:”

Improves motivation, focus, satisfaction of job role, and effectiveness – by taking the time to reflect on one’s personal development, one can gain a sense of security from knowing that this is what the individual would like to achieve. By turning this into actions, it helps motivate the individual, focus their mind, and improve effectiveness as they can see and feel the benefits of improving personal development.

Improving confidence is vital; by achieving their personal goals, individuals can gain confidence in that particular area.

Be able to plan for an individual’s development.

In order to plan for an individual’s development, it is important to reflect on the business goal. For example, if my department wanted to expand into breast prosthetics, it would be crucial to ensure that the staff are trained on the specifics of the role, e.g., how to fabricate a prosthetic breast. When developing a plan, it is important to evaluate the individual’s needs and both give and receive feedback.

Managing Expectations: It is also important to:

Communicate with the individual to make them feel involved, valued, and motivated to be part of their own development.

Consider the individual’s training needs and skills they may already have, and allow them to identify some of their own needs. This creates a two-way process.

Be sensitive to their needs by being open, transparent, and communicating. This allows the individual to feel less alienated, harassed, or bullied.

Understand the individual’s personality and be friendly. Discuss personal development with sensitivity and ensure that wording and phrasing is used correctly.

Understand the individual’s learning preference or style. For example, if they are a visual learner, giving them written theory may make them feel overwhelmed. Therefore, it may be beneficial to understand all possible training methods.

Development vehicles in the organisation are appropriate to the development needs of the individual.

Organizations may offer many different types of vehicles to help improve development, such as:

In-house Training: These are non-monetary training courses that the company may offer in-house. For example, in the NHS, we have a training system that allows us to book non-mandatory training, such as wellbeing awareness.

Mandatory training refers to training that all staff members must complete. It contributes to the development of the individual and helps them understand company values, goals, and government laws.

Coaching – Coaching might be an effective method for individuals who are visual learners or novices in a particular field. Coaching involves demonstrating to the learner how to execute a skill, giving thorough instructions, and allowing the learner to display their understanding by completing the task independently.

Mentoring: Having a specific individual to turn to if you require assistance in developing a skill is beneficial. This colleague can help you to further understand how to complete this task to a high standard. Further, they may provide reminders to complete tasks and assess how you are progressing throughout the development plan.

Conferences can improve personal and professional development, as they allow you to network, see what training and development courses are available within the profession, and learn from others in the same profession.

Formal courses – These can offer a more formal qualification.

For example, I would opt to coach and offer mandatory in-house training to our plaster technician. I choose this approach because there are no formal qualifications or conferences available in this field. As it’s a practical job role that involves using machinery and other high-tech tools, I would provide a manual/guide. Additionally, I would demonstrate how to operate the machines, create models and use the tools until they feel confident enough to showcase this skill themselves.

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