Sample skills development plan: everything you need to know to build your own

By Jennifer Montérémal

Published: November 9, 2024

Increasing knowledge and skills is essential to the development of both employees and the company.

Among other things, it helps strengthen employee commitment and loyalty, while encouraging internal promotion.

In order to determine the most appropriate training actions and to ensure their follow-up, there is an indispensable tool: the skills development plan. We tell you more, with a few examples to back it up 👇.

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Definition of the skills development plan

Formerly known as the training plan, the skills development plan is a scheme designed to ensure that employees acquire and update the knowledge essential to their professional development 🧑‍💼.

Is the skills development plan compulsory for companies?

In practice, there is no obligation for a company to introduce a skills development plan. It's up to the employer to decide. The decision to introduce such a plan is generally taken by employee representatives, after consultation with all employees.

In addition, it should be noted that if the company has set up a skills development plan, then the employee is - except in special cases - required to opt out of the various training actions.

💡 Good to know: through their training account, employees can also take the initiative in upgrading their skills.

Benefits for employees

From the employee's point of view, the skills development plan contributes, among other things, to:

job security ;
job satisfaction;
boosting self-esteem;
encouraging internal promotion.

In addition, it's worth noting that at a time when many professions are evolving alongside the rise of digital technology, the need for training is all the more important 💪.

Benefits for employers

At first glance, some companies may take a dim view of the skills development plan. Mainly for financial reasons and encroachment on working time.

But on closer examination, the benefits of training and developing employees are numerous. These include

substantial savings through internal recruitment;
increased employee commitment;
increased employee loyalty;
increased productivity through skills development;
attracting the younger generation to the recruitment market.

Focus on training initiatives

The training initiatives that make up the skills development plan are divided into two categories:

Compulsory or necessary training initiatives: these training modules take place during working hours, and involve continued remuneration. Their compulsory nature derives from the application of an international agreement or from legal and regulatory provisions relating to the performance of a given function or activity.

Non-compulsory training: these training modules may take place on or off the job. Continued remuneration depends on this criterion.

How is the skills development plan financed?

The first thing to know is that the financing of the skills development plan is entirely the responsibility of the company. In other words, it is the employer who finances :

training modules ;
catering costs ;
any travel expenses;
any accommodation costs;
continued remuneration for employees undergoing training.

However, you should be aware that you may be eligible for external aid to help you cover all these training costs. Organizations such as the European Social Fund (ESF), regional councils or skills operators (OPCO) can contribute to this funding 👍.

💡Goodto know: any company with at least one employee is concerned by participation in professional training. Taxes are levied each year, the amount of which is based on the payroll according to the number of employees in the company. Companies with more than 50 employees are not eligible for financial assistance from an OPCO.

How do you draw up a skills development plan? The 6 steps

Drawing up a skills development plan cannot be improvised overnight. Several distinct stages must be carefully followed.

Step 1: Defining needs

Here, we distinguish between two types of training needs: those originating from the employer, and those originating from the employees.

A well-constructed skills development plan will therefore include :

training initiatives that the employer deems necessary in view of the company's strategy and development (learning to use new software, bringing staff up to new safety standards, etc.) ;

training initiatives that employees deem necessary for the performance of their tasks and their development within the company (customer relations development, introduction to time-saving software, etc.).

Step 2: Selecting training courses

Once you've identified your training needs, it's time to define them precisely.

To do this, the company will look at the most appropriate organizations and modules . As the majority of training initiatives are carried out during working hours, with continued remuneration, the employer will seek to optimize them by various means.

Step 3: Budgeting

The employer is responsible for the entire cost of the training programs included in the skills development plan. To this end, budgeting is particularly important.

The company must define the most appropriate budget, taking into account the needs expressed by employees and the imperatives imposed by the management team. With this in mind, it's essential to prioritize.

Step 4: Prioritization

Managing to satisfy all stakeholders in terms of training appears to be a delicate mission. An employee on training is one who is unable to carry out his or her usual duties during a given period. What's more, companies do not have unlimited financial reserves.

Prioritization must therefore be carried out, taking into account the time spent, the benefits of each training course and the budget allocated.

Step 5: Implementation

Once the skills development plan has been finalized and validated, the employer can notify his employees.

Implementing the training schedule helps to anticipate the needs to be covered, and gives employees a more or less long-term view.

Contrary to popular belief, the skills development plan is not set in stone. In other words, it can be readjusted - to a certain extent - as the needs of the employer and employees evolve.

Step 6: Assessment

Implementing a skills development plan is a good thing. It's even better to be able to assess its effectiveness and take advantage of it!

Here, the company's objective must be to define as precisely as possible the impact of all the training actions carried out during the year:

Have employee skill levels, satisfaction and commitment increased?
Has there been a positive impact on performance and productivity?
Have any internal recruitments been made?

💡Good to know: for companies with over 50 employees, the draft skills development plan must be presented to the company's social and economic committee (CSE). Minutes will be drawn up to record the decisions taken during the presentation meeting.

2 examples of skills development plans

There is no single model to follow when drawing up a skills development plan. Many templates are available for download to help you get an idea of the key headings to include.

Here are a few examples of skills development plans to inspire you 👉.

The Uniformation template

This sample Excel-based skills development plan is designed to be clean, easy to read and simple. It gives a complete and immediate overview of the type of training, its duration and cost.

In fact, it's the budgetary aspect that makes this example of a skills development plan particularly interesting. It allows you to calculate the portion of salary paid during training time, as well as the various costs associated with travel and accommodation.

However, there are no sections focusing on training and its objectives. This example of a skills development plan would therefore benefit from further development.

The SmartInsights model

Complex at first glance, this example of a skills development plan has the distinctive feature of correlating the employee's training objectives with the company's development objectives. A choice that aligns individual and organizational development for a more relevant overall view.

While it includes the main headings that make up a skills development plan (duration of training, objectives to be achieved, progress monitoring, manager's comments, etc.), we regret the absence of a budgetary dimension and a lack of legibility.

In short, this example of a skills development plan appears to be designed primarily for in-depth individual follow-up.

What tools can help you?

A skills development plan can be designed with basic tools. A simple spreadsheet can do the trick, provided you have correctly defined each heading to be included.

Some of the most important headings are :

type of training ;
training dates ;
total training time;
training organization;
cost of training;
training objectives ;
level of progress ;
skills developed;
manager's comments and observations.

However, more and more companies are opting for dedicated software, whose specific features make it much easier to create, update and monitor the various skills development plans. Not to mention that they often provide advanced analyses and reports, enabling a more accurate assessment of the effectiveness of these plans.

👉 Skeely, for example, specializes in interview management and GPEC. Thanks to its skills mapping tool, you have a global repository of your company's knowledge and know-how, so you can better define your needs in terms of skills upgrading. Planning the training actions to be implemented is then a simple matter of a few clicks, since all the data is recorded in the platform.