A professional development plan is documentation of goals, competency development, required skill and objectives that staff members should accomplish to support career development and continuous improvement.
A manager who works closely with staff members creates a professional development plan to identify the right skills and resources to support the career goals of staff members as well as the business needs of the organization.
Professional development for staff can begin when new members join a team. All other members should have a professional development plan because planning should not take place only after signs that a staff member needs improvement.
Purpose Professional Development plan
A career development plan should use the skills, interests, and values to help in thinking about these:
- The current position and the desired position
- Short and long-term career goals
- The alignment of the chosen specialty to skills, experience, personality, passions, and dislikes
- Any skills and expertise that is necessary to acquire
- Current qualifications in the labor market, available positions and other job requirements that require further researching.
Professional development plan increases knowledge and skill thus improving the quality of patient care. Studies on nurses who participate in professional development activities gain a higher level of engagement and job satisfaction. Employers of such nurses benefit from improved retention rates.
The professional development activity provides nurses with new knowledge and skills on ways of delivering high-quality care to the patients and strengthen the healthcare organizations. A commitment to continued learning also helps in creating a forward momentum in the career of a health practitioner. Nurses can target particular learning goals and make progress from their current knowledge in the nursing career.
Tips for a Nurse to Maximize an Individual Professional Development
- Invest in professional development and prepare a professional development plan. The plan should have a set time for reviewing the plan, count the accomplishment and set other goals
- Ask an employer about the available professional development goals
- Identify learning needs using reflective practice by writing about an experience or interaction with a patient focusing on the things that went right and those that require improvement.
- Discuss goals and learning needs of the nursing leaders, educators, NDP practitioners or mentors.
- Commit to making a particular progress every week, month and year
Role of NPDS in Achieving Professional Development Plan
Nursing professional development specialist (NPDS) has knowledge and skills in the adult learning principles and nursing career development. They also have skills in program development, continuing education, management, and leadership.
NPDS is a practice specialty with a basis on sciences of nursing, research, technology, evidence-based practice, leadership, communication and nursing professional development education. These experienced nursing educators play a crucial role in helping nurses to engage in lifelong learning to develop and maintain competencies.
They also help nurses to advance their professional nursing practice, facilitate achievement of academic and practice career goals. Nursing professional development specialists work in various practice settings and environments of patient care. Some NPDS work in schools or nursing to facilitate the learning experiences of students who are seeking to be nurses. Others conduct their duties in clinical settings and are essential in developing the professional abilities of nurses for them to put lessons from school into practice. The work of an NPDS at a clinical setting is to orient, instruct and manage competencies of staff nurses, new graduates, and students serving at the point of care.
It is the reason some people call them clinical nurse educators because of their role in supporting nursing research, evidence-based practice and improvement of quality through the professional development of nursing skills.
Conclusions on Professional Development Plan
1. A nursing professional development plan is a responsibility of each nurse. It should go together with a commitment to learning.
2. Combining a personal and professional development plan helps nurses to organize development goals that are more professional
3. Nursing professional development practitioners have a role in guiding to support continuing education for nurses