Free employee development plan template in excel - download and use right away
The employee development plan template in excel is truly a powerful tool to engage, retain and motivate your employees skills development.
This individual development plan example is designed from the ground up as an employee self evaluation template to develop employee job skills and boost their job performance immediately.
It’s easy for the employer to administer, with fast set up and an easy to customize excel template. You can adjust to your employees development needs.
You should use this template as part of your overall employee development plan.
How an individual employee development plan template can turbocharge employee job performance
The EDP Template is most effective as part of a quarterly performance review process.
As an individual development plan template, it allows for employee self evaluation and a quarterly performance review as part of a smooth quarterly skills development process.
It is geared towards a continual refresh of what job proficiencies the employee will work on.
To implement the EDP template in Excel:
- The employee development plan template is filled in and set up by employer, using employees job description and job requirements
- Employee rates and ranks their proficiencies to prioritize areas they need to focus on; manager does the same
- At quarter end performance review , the template makes it easy for manager assess if employees development goals are attained
The EDP template can also be used as a career development plan or a professional development plan. It depends on the makeup up of your workforce and how you want to deploy it.
When properly used, this EDP Template can turbocharge your employees job performance
This template’s innovative design is geared towards improving employees job performance.
- Because the EDP is focused on job proficiencies, it increases employee buy-in boosting work performance.
- The employee self-evaluation template empowers employees to choose which job skill proficiencies to work, increasing employee buy in and engagement.
- Each quarter, the employee is ranking and rating all their proficiencies, so they become clear about the scope of their job roles
- A template that is skills-development focused makes it easier and faster for managers to measure employee performance metrics each quarter
Importantly, in todays digital age you may notice that interpersonal skills, listening skills and attention spans have suffered.
You can use soft skills as a powerful tool to:
- Build communication skills, empathy and tact
- Manage difficult or insubordinate employees by helping them learn to manage individual components of their behavior and mindset
- To develop leadership development plans that achieve leadership development goals
About the Author and Course Creator
Larry LaFata is a talent development specialist and the founder of The Modern Leadership Center.
He has a unique ability to synthesize research and innovation into organized, usable concepts. This provides clients with streamlined leadership skills training and employee development solutions they can implement quickly.
After 30 years experience working with Fortune 500 companies, Larry turned to his passion: leadership development and talent development. The core of his course creation approach is customized self-assessment and skills development templates. No psychometric tests or psychology assessments are ever used.
Larry has authored: Leadership Development Programs, Career Change Planning Programs, Employee Development Plans and Employee Rewards Programs.
Larry’s mission at the Modern Leadership Center is to better humanity through innovative talent development strategies. His continuing efforts in talent development keeps him in the forefront of thought leadership in the industry.
Note: This EDP Template in excel is part of a complete Employee Development Plan Template Kit
The complete EDP Template Kit also provides:
- Template for the employee development plan
- Sample employee development plan examples
- Individual development plan examples
- Individual development plan template in Word, Excel and PDF
- Employee Development Workshop option
To learn more, click on book cover image:
The 3 parts of an effective employee development plan
Properly done, an effective employee development plan has 3 steps:
Step one:
- Employee Self Evaluation: Employee rates and ranks the their top 3 job skill proficiencies to develop this quarter
Manager evaluates the same set of skills at quarterly review:
Collaboration: Together employee and manager choose the final 3 skills to develop for the quarter
Step Two:
Employee Quarterly Development Goals: A daily reminder of agreed on proficiencies, also functions as a scorecard for employee quarterly results.
Step Three:
The Quarterly Review: Manager reviews each of the 3 skills to make an assessment of employee’s quarterly outcome results (and awards rewards if desired)
- Manager provides specifics of why employee was rated a specific outcome
- Optional – manager awards employee rewards
The 3 steps of the employee-employer review
This diagram shows the 3 step cycle an effective employee development plan.
Employees are desperate to develop employability skills
The EDP Template can be your most powerful employee development tool, because your employees are literally begging you to include skills development in order to stay.
Your employees are desperate for career development and skills development, so there is dire need:
- More than 70% of employees in a recent LinkedIn survey say they want to develop work related skills so they can perform at higher levels, expand personal growth and be more valuable in the workplace
- 58% say they will leave a company without professional development
- With 8.4% less workers opting for college degrees in the last 5 years – and growing – work skills development is more important than ever to both employer and employee.
Its a perfect storm for the need for employee development. Lower college enrollment, employees requesting professional development to keep up with their skills, and the high cost of turnover.
An individual employee development plan can be used for many purposes:
This individual employee development plan template has numerous uses:
- To boost employee job performance
- To build an employer-employee collaborative partnership
- To manage employee behavioral issues
- To develop strategic career and leadership development
Final Thoughts
May your employees thrive using this employee development plan template in excel, it can be a powerful tool.
If you enjoyed the employee development plan template in Excel, why not get the entire development plan?
It incudes the employee evaluation, employee review, soft skills development templates and an optional cost effective employee rewards plan.
Find out more below:
Boost employee job performance from day one
Build job skills and soft skills quickly with concise templates
Innovative Employee Development Plan Template Kit includes everything an employer needs to improve employee job performance from day one.
- Saves employers time: easy one time set up, fast quarterly reviews and employee completes their own self evaluation templates
- Build job skills, soft skills, leadership and emotional intelligence customized to the level of each employee’s skillset
- Rewards program templates insure employee motivation and retention
- Step-by-step instructions guide and clean employee skills development templates in excel.
Best for up to 30 developable employees.

