Development of Personalised Action Plan

Building on the identification and assessment of needs, it is good practice to develop and agree a personalised action plan with the client. The action plan should consist of a number of actions that will collectively enable the individual to achieve their employment aspirations.

For the action plan to be effective, it needs to be:

• Developed jointly between the individual and the employability worker. This should involve discussion over what the final aspiration is and what is required to achieve that.
• Owned by the individual - i.e. they are committed to it and recognise its worth. Ensuring that the individual has a significant input into developing the action plan will help generate ownership.
• Reviewed on a regular basis in order to reflect and celebrate the progress that has been made and focus on what actions still need to be worked on. The review process should also offer the opportunity to refresh the actions on account of changing personal circumstances and/or aspirations.

In developing the action plan, the key questions that need to be answered are:

• What are the barriers to employment that need to be addressed?
• What needs to be done - i.e. what actions are required?
• What will success look like?  

In answering these questions, the action plan should be developed in a logical manner and consist of the following types of headings:

• Goals, objectives or aspirations.
• Steps or actions towards those goals - and where possible these should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound).
• Responsibility for each action.
• Timescale for each action.
• Progress made against each action.