Working with the PDP: Employee/Manager
In the previous article we have learned what is a PDP, as well as the steps to follow in the PDP process.
In this article we will learn how to work with a PDP.
The employee's PDP plays a central part in the LMS, bringing programmes, standards, licences and other training like company training together on one screen from where an employee can get sight of and action his outstanding training.
This module will be discussed from the employee/manager's perspective.
How did I get here?
- From the portal, click - My PDP
What can I expect in this section?
- How to open the PDP.
- How to view a list of your own PDP's.
- How to view a PDP summary.
- Open on of your PDP's.
What configuration and Master library Data should be in place?
- All the master data components listed in the PDP Configuration and Administration section in this manual.
Accessing the PDP Module as an Employee / Manager
There are different entry points into the PDP module but we will first focus on how an employee or manager will use the module.
Login to the Signify HR system. From the Home page navigate to the My PDP link in the My Quick Start Menu to open the PDP module.
View/Edit the Courses in the PDP
The PDP Dashboard are divided into two sections:
- Personal Development Plan Approval Section: This section is for viewing a summary of employees' PDP statuses under a manager's control and working on them if applicable. This section is only available to managers that have been set up as PDP approvers in their employee's reporting lines.
- My Personal Development Plan: this section is for creating a new PDP or manage your own PDP.
Personal Development Plan Approval Section (PDP Managers)
At the top of the My PDP screen is a section summarising the statuses of all PDPs under a manager’s control.
Click on any status 'Not approved yet' OR 'Approved by administrator' to view the list of employees who's PDP's are in that status.
To open a specific employee's PDP either click on the record or click Open PDP in the Action column.
How a Manager Approves one of his Employee's PDPs
- At this point in the PDP process, the employee’s PDP manager will log in and navigate to the employee’s PDP as show above.
- After opening the employee's PDP locate and click Approve PDP to approve the PDP and all its courses.
- From now on no new interventions can be added to the PDP unless it is firstly unapproved.
My Personal Development Plan
Locate the My Personal Development Plan section on the My PDP screen.
This screen presents the user with a few options as well as important information regarding the progress and status of his PDP.
- A new PDP can be created by using the Create new PDP button.
- Existing PDPs can be opened for editing by clicking a PDP’s View / Edit icon.
- A summary of an existing PDP can be generated by using the Preview icon.
- Every PDP’s Approval Status is visible.
- The number of courses completed per PDP can be checked.
Open One of My Existing PDP's
On the list of your own PDP's select and open one by clicking on the View / Edit icon to open the Personal Development Plan screen.
- This screen will not be discussed now but rather when we create and build a new PDP.
- Locate and click on Back to Self Service to at the bottom of the page to return to the My PDP page.
How to create a new PDP
For the purposes of this article we will assume that a PDP for the current active PDP period does not yet exist.
When an employee’s PDP is created, the system checks whether there are mandatory courses that must be automatically loaded into the PDP. These courses have different sources e.g.:
- Mandatory courses required by a company.
- Mandatory courses part of a position’s profile.
- Mandatory courses required by a learning provider/training department etc.
The courses behind these sections are setup by the PDP administrators. Not all sections are necessarily available. These sections can be identified by the absence of ADD buttons.
Examples of such sections are Courses required by my company and Courses part of my job description.
The Personal Development Plan section will appear as follows on the new portal.
PDP Courses List
On the My PDP page, under the Personal Development Plan section, locate and click the hyperlink (You do not have an active PDP. Click here to create one.) to open the following screen. When this screen is opened, a number of actions have already taken place. These are:
- The employee’s details (including current job title) are shown at the top of the page. The Current Job Title is used to identify courses appropriate to this employee.
- A PDP was created and saved for the currently active PDP period as configured by the PDP Administrator. In this case for 2015.
- The screen is opened on the Courses tab.
- The basic PDP properties are automatically set. These can be viewed by clicking the PDP’s Detail tab, this screen’s contents will be discussed later.
PDP Company Training List
- Appropriate and mandatory courses (e.g. courses required by a company for all employees) are loaded against the PDP and into their respective sections. An example is shown below.
PDP Job Title Courses List
- Mandatory courses required by your job title are loaded against the PDP and into their respective sections. An example is shown below.
The PDP Process next steps
After creating a new PDP for an employee, typical steps in the PDP process include the following which will be discussed further.
- Review the mandatory courses automatically added by the system when the PDP was created.
- Add additional PDP initiatives. These could come from various sources and are discussed later.
- Discuss the completed PDP with your manager.
- Your manager will then approve the PDP.
- Another manager can also approve the PDP but this is an optional step.
Add training initiatives to a PDP
PDP (Personal Development Plan) records or initiatives can originate from a number of sources e.g.:
- Compulsory training interventions/initiatives expected by the company.
- Courses requested by the employee.
- Courses addressing potential performance gaps identified during an employee’s performance management process.
- Courses supporting promotion.
In this section we are primarily concerned with adding a training initiative directly to the PDP. In other words adding a course that is not automatically part of the employee’s PDP because of job or other company requirements.
The following procedure is used to add training initiatives to the different sections on the PDP screen. We will be using the Additional Courses section for our example.
PDP Training Intervention Detail
- In the section to which a training intervention is to be added, locate and click Add to open the following screen.
- Complete the PDP Training Intervention Detail screen with suitable information.
- To select the applicable training intervention, click on the orange hand next to the course text box to open the training intervention library.
- Select the appropriate training intervention and click Save to update the PDP Training Intervention Detail screen.
PDP Additional Courses
- Close the PDP Training Intervention Detail screen and locate the Additional Course section to verify that the course has been added.
- To delete the course from the PDP, tick the Delete check box and click the Delete button.
- The same procedure is followed to add training interventions to all the discretionary sections.
Employee is Scheduled/Booked on a Course
So far we may have referred to “courses” being added to an employee’s PDP. Actually they were not courses but rather proposed training interventions.
The next step is for the employee to be booked on an actual course, based on an identified training intervention.
Bookings made on courses that are managed and booked externally will not reflect on the employee’s PDP. However, if the employee is booked on a course managed by the Signify Event Management module, the booking will reflect on the PDP. In the screenshot below the employee is scheduled to go on a course on 11 January 2016.
Employee Attends a Training Course
After approval of the employee’s PDP, the employee starts attending the courses indicated on his PDP. For each of these courses the following process should be followed if the course is to be marked as completed on the employee’s PDP.
- The employee attends and successfully completes the course. A course can be managed externally or internally in the Signify Event Management module.
- The course results are fed back to the PDP or HR Administrator.
- The course results are logged in the system’s Learner Records section. Depending on how the course was managed, externally or in Event Management, a learner record is either created manually or automatically from Event Management.
- The employee’s course in the PDP is updated from the Learner Record to show the employee’s completion of the course.
Create a Learner Record for a Completed Course
The only way in which a course on a PDP can reflect as being completed is via the existence of a matching learner record against an employee’s name. To log a learner record for an employee, follow these steps (unless the learner record is automatically created from the Event Management or Pathway modules):
An example of a learner record is shown below.
PDP Course is Updated
Once a learner record for the course is available, the employee’s course results are updated on his PDP as well. The completed course is highlighted in green as shown below.
A few implications of the fact that a learner record’s existence updates a course on an employee’s PDP are:
- A learner record is matched to a course based on a common Training Intervention name.
- A learner record can only be added for a course if the course already exists in the Training Intervention library. Refer to the chapter on creating a training intervention later in this document.
- If a learner record exists for a course completed in the past and this course is included in an employee’s PDP, the course in the PDP will automatically be updated. Therefore a situation could occur where a course is added and then immediately reflects as being done. If there is doubt about the correctness of this, open the employee’s learner records, search for the applicable learner record and check its details.