10 Developmental Goal Examples for Employees

Setting clear and achievable goals for your team will motivate them to develop their skills and ultimately make them much more productive. So, we’ve created a list of developmental goal examples for employees to help trainers design effective training with direction and purpose.

1. Improve communication skills

Communication is non-negotiable in all aspects of work life. It’s the secret to building work relationships, collaborating with teammates, and improving customer satisfaction. A good communicator can also negotiate, manage conflict, and provide constructive feedback when necessary. These are all essential for the growth and success of any organization.

An employee will be communicating in different mediums both verbal and non-verbal. It’s important to develop employee skills in written communication, virtual presentation, in-person conversations, and public speaking. Also, note that active listening is a key part of communicating.

So, if you’re looking for communication training materials to deploy to your team, EdApp has a massive library of editable courses. Some great communication courses include ones on social media communication, technical writing, active listening, and much more! But if these courses are not specific enough for your needs, EdApp also offers a course creation service. Just let them know what you need and they’ll design beautiful courses that you and your team will love.

Achieve those development goals for your employees today with EdApp courses. It’s free forever.

2. Develop leadership skills

An essential developmental goals example for employees is leadership. A great leader is someone who can inspire people, motivate team members, make difficult decisions, and direct the overall vision of a team. These are all values and skills that will ultimately positively impact your company. Having great leaders affects the entire team and business, so all employees should strive to develop these leadership skills.

There are many ways to achieve this. Enroll your employees in leadership training courses and programs where they learn key leadership theories they can put into practice. Once they’ve done this, let them take on leadership roles to gauge their readiness. After all, experience is the best teacher. Then bring it back to the team with feedback. Leaders are team players, so the feedback from coworkers will help identify key areas of improvement.

3. Master time management

Let’s admit it, time management is one of the most difficult skills to master in this day and age. It’s easy to get distracted nowadays, and especially difficult to keep up with the fast-paced lifestyle many employees have. That’s why this is an important developmental goal example for employees. Time management will not only make you more productive but improve work-life balance which leads to a less stressful work life.

Time management includes prioritizing, planning and organizing, minimizing distractions, and managing disruptions during work. Concrete ways to achieve time management skills are to use tools like calendar tools, to-do lists, and reminder apps. And then combine this with goal setting and deadlines which can make tasks less daunting. Another great tip for time management is to take breaks in between work to avoid burnout.

4. Become a team player

There's no doubt that you can achieve more as a team. As a team, you can collaborate to create bigger and better ideas, refine deliverables through feedback, and work together to achieve results faster and more efficiently. And to be frank, being part of a team means you’re not alone. Team playing means you’re relying on each other to make work a lot less stressful than it needs to be. 

A great way to improve teamwork is by encouraging collaboration at work. Make sure your work is visible and available for feedback. Foster social or peer learning opportunities, where team members can share their ideas and experience on a variety of topics. Of course, you also need to know how to be flexible to manage conflicts. You’re not always going to see eye-to-eye with everyone, so team playing means you can negotiate. With that said, it’s also important to celebrate team successes, no matter how small they are.

5. Sharpen problem-solving skills

Problem-solving includes analyzing data, evaluating results, implementing solutions, and thinking outside of the box. When employees sharpen their problem-solving skills, they can contribute effectively to the company by overcoming current difficulties, improving workflow, challenging outdated processes, and so much more. Encouraging your team to be problem-solvers fosters a purpose-driven workplace which, in the end, drives results.

Becoming a problem-solver is a mindset change. Make sure your employees don’t just follow orders but encourage them to think about their work as creating solutions. This empowers them to be more goal-centric. Help them by ingraining analysis and critical thinking as key parts of the work process. Encourage creativity and wild ideas. And also make sure no one is afraid to ask questions, even ones they may feel are stupid.

6. Explore creativity

In the previous section, we talked about creativity as integral to problem-solving. But how do you achieve this, what does it look like? Well, creativity can be defined in other words as innovation, discovery, and experimentation among many others. An employee is creative when they embrace new perspectives, explore different ideas, and value the idea of failure. Exploring creativity means you’re always going to take risks because true growth always comes with risks.

So, to help your employees achieve this developmental goal, make sure you create work avenues for experimentation, risk-taking, and failure. Try using learning management systems with courseware that allows employees to experiment with processes. Aside from that, foster a comfortable work environment where employees feel free to express themselves and their fresh ideas. Use resources for brainstorming sessions, hackathons, writing sessions, or whatever is equivalent in your industries.

7. Deepen industry knowledge

Another item you can include for your employee goals template is deepening industry knowledge. Knowledge and trends in particular industries rapidly change so it’s important employees are encouraged to stay up to date with emerging information. This keeps your team ahead of the competition and focused on their career growth.

If you want to help your team achieve these goals, let them attend industry events, read relevant publications, and pursue education either through certification or academic institutions. Networking with peers and people in the industry is also a great way to acquire knowledge. Your team can even find mentors or teachers that guide them and provide insider insight into the trade.

8. Becoming customer-oriented

As a trainer, if you’re creating a template for developmental goals and objectives for employees, becoming customer-oriented is something you should include. It’s no secret that customers are the key to success in any business. And even if you’re not in a customer service role, you’re still indirectly working with customers and clients. And customers trust businesses that care about them. 

So encourage your employees to work with the customer in mind. With every contribution, ask them, how would this impact our customers. How can we make their lives easier and better? Make sure your employees have positive impacts on customers and get them involved with customer issues. Let them seek out customer feedback so they can provide the best service possible.

9. Broaden skill set

One of the best development goals for employees examples we can give you is to broaden your team’s skill set. Let them learn things beyond their role and scope. Having a diverse skill set guarantees that you can contribute more to the company and fast-track career growth. Employees will have more opportunities open to them when they have more to offer. It’s also a great way to combat stagnating in a position. It keeps work interesting and can improve productivity.

Allow your team to pursue cross-training, or involve them in the work of other departments so they can learn from each other. You can also assign them stretch activities that don’t distract them from their main responsibilities. And of course, it always goes back to great training, providing them with training material on various topics. Microlearning is great for this because your team can take small courses on the go or on their own time.

10. Understand financial literacy

Financial literacy should be one of the development goals examples for employees because it helps reduce financial stress and trains employees to be smart, organized, and informed. When employees are financially secure, they can worry about the most important thing: their work. Things like financial planning, investments, and retirement planning are all financial literacy lessons your employees need to learn.

You can meet this goal by enrolling them in financial planning and wellness programs. So they can make informed decisions about investments and even retirement plans. You can also incentivize meeting financial goals or paying off debt through bonuses or rewards. It’s always great to celebrate financial success.