HR Professional Development Goals: How To Set Them [FREE Templates]
Did you know that by writing down your goals, you’re 43% more likely to achieve them? Take your career growth into your own hands and start setting your HR professional development goals today!
Setting HR professional development goals helps you develop and improve your skills and advance your HR career. Let’s see how you can establish such goals and grow as an HR professional!
Contents
What are HR professional development goals?
How to set and achieve your HR professional development goals
HR professional development goals examples
Professional development plan examples for HR professionals
What are HR professional development goals?
HR professional development goals are objectives Human Resources professionals set to enhance their skills, knowledge, and capabilities. These goals aim to improve their performance and effectiveness in their roles, help them stay updated with industry trends, and advance their careers.
Setting HR professional development goals helps you focus on continuous learning and career growth. Having clear, achievable goals allows you to prioritize your learning and development (L&D) activities, track your progress, and measure your success. Ultimately, this leads to improved job performance, increased job satisfaction, and greater career advancement opportunities.
It’s important to note the difference between performance goals and professional goals, as these often overlap but are not interchangeable.
Performance goals are linked to an organization’s KPIs. They relate to performance outcomes employees should strive to achieve. Professional goals are more individual, focusing on improving an employee’s skills and competencies to give them more confidence in their role and help them progress in their career. For example, a performance goal would be to improve an organization’s talent retention, whereas a professional goal would be to improve an individual’s data literacy skills.
How to set and achieve your HR professional development goals
1. Chart your HR career path
The first step to setting HR professional development goals is charting your career path. What role do you hope to grow into in the future? What skills do you want to develop? Is there a niche area you want to specialize in, or would you prefer to maintain a broader role? The possibilities in the HR field are vast.
Regardless of your HR career goals, what matters most is knowing where you aspire to be, then mapping out the necessary steps to take to get from where you are now to where you want to be. Use an HR career path tool to explore the various HR career options available to you and determine the direction you want to take.
2. Audit your skills
Once you know the career path you want to take, it’s time to conduct a personal skills audit. This will give you a good sense of your strengths and opportunities for improvement and growth. Essentially, you’ll be conducting your own skills gap analysis. Start by making a list of your current skills and the skills you need to develop to progress to your ultimate HR role. Use a scoring system like the one below to rate yourself on these skills.
- 5 = Excellent expertise and experience
- 4 = Good expertise and experience
- 3 = A little knowledge and experience
- 2 = Interested in learning more and applying that knowledge practically
- 1 = No knowledge or experience
People tend to over or underestimate their expertise, so you should get someone you trust (like your line manager or mentor) to conduct a similar audit of your skills. Collate your results and discuss them with your manager to see if they accurately reflect your current skills and competencies. Based on this, you can create a plan of action to bridge your skills gap.
Here’s an example of an HR skills gap analysis:
3. Break down goals into smaller increments
Goals can feel intimidating as people have a tendency to set unrealistic, overly ambitious targets, making them feel impossible to achieve. Breaking big goals into smaller, more manageable goals and actionable steps is essential to helping you progress.
For example, a big personal development goal for an HR professional would be to improve their people analytics skills. On its own, this goal feels vast, with the steps needed to achieve it unclear. So let’s break it down into smaller, actionable steps:
- Get a people analytics certification
- Improve your Excel skills
- Shadow or work with a people analytics or data analyst expert for a week
- Complete two data analyses in your current role
- Present data findings in your next meeting
Another personal goal for HR professionals might be to become a stronger presenter and public speaker. This big goal could be broken down into the following smaller steps:
- Take a public speaking or presentation skills training course
- Seek expert advice from a colleague or superior who excels at presentations and public speaking
- Prepare a short presentation with your newfound knowledge
- Practice it with your mentor and ask for feedback
- Implement this feedback and present it to a larger group
- Commit to giving one presentation every two months for the next year
4. Make your goals SMART
Once you’ve broken down your big goals into incremental ones, it’s important to make sure they are SMART:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
SMART HR professional development goals give you a clear framework and plan of action to follow to achieve milestones in your work. They will keep you motivated as you tick them off and help you see if you’re on track to meeting your bigger goals. Here are two examples of SMART HR professional development goals:
Example 1: “Over the next six months, I will improve my conflict resolution skills by attending a monthly group training session.”
- Specific: This goal specifies how you will improve your conflict resolution skills (through a series of training sessions).
- Measurable: You will attend six training sessions (one per month), and the group will provide feedback on your performance.
- Achievable: Attending one training session each month is manageable as it does not add to your workload.
- Relevant: Improving your conflict resolution skills is relevant for your HR professional development and career progression.
- Time-bound: You will reach this goal in six months.
Example 2: “Over the next six weeks, I will complete an online DEIB certificate program to gain the skills I need to specialize in a DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) HR career in the future. To do this, I will study for five hours each week.”
- Specific: You know exactly how you’ll improve your DEIB skills (through a dedicated online certificate program).
- Measurable: Every hour and week of study represents a small milestone toward your goal. Once you complete 30 hours of study and receive your certificate, you will have achieved your goal.
- Achievable: Five hours of weekly study is manageable, especially if some of them occur over the weekend.
- Relevant: This certification is suitable for anyone wanting to specialize in DEIB in their professional HR career.
- Time-bound: You will reach this goal in six weeks.
We will discuss more SMART goals examples below.
5. Find new challenges in your current job
Don’t let your current role prevent you from developing new skills and taking on new responsibilities to help you progress along your chosen HR career path. Most managers will be thrilled to let you handle extra responsibilities and manage side projects that will further your professional development while helping to meet organizational goals.
For example, if you want to develop or strengthen your public speaking skills, ask your manager if you can handle the next team presentation. If you want to build up your interpersonal and mentoring skills, discuss with your manager the possibility of taking an entry-level employee or intern under your wing.
6. Focus on core competencies and future HR skills
The five core competencies in HR are:
- Data literacy: The ability to read, understand, interpret, and apply data to make improvements.
- Digital agility: The skill of leveraging and integrating technology to increase personal and organizational efficiency.
- Business acumen: A keen understanding of an organization’s goals, purpose, and vision and the ability to align HR processes, policies, and activities with these goals.
- People advocacy: The ability to create a strong internal culture and maximize everyone’s potential.
- Execution excellence: A set of behaviors and skills that ensure HR professionals effectively execute tasks and drive meaningful impact for all stakeholders.
These competencies form a solid base on which you can develop further specialist skills and competencies.
Here are other future HR skills that will be increasingly important in the workplace:
- Change management and change consulting
- Risk management
- Management of strategic deals and alliances
- Ethics and data privacy
- Critical and systems thinking
- Resilience
- Project management
With your desired HR career path in mind, you can layer on top of these foundational skills depending on where you want to go. For example, if you desire to become an HR Manager or Business Partner, you need to be able to manage projects, stakeholders, and strategic deals and alliances. If your goal is to become a people or diversity officer, you’ll need skills like integrating cultural differences, change management, change consulting, and inter-departmental collaboration.
7. Track your progress and hold yourself accountable
The final step to setting and achieving your HR professional goals is consistently tracking your progress. Use a professional development plan template, calendar, spreadsheet, or project management tool (like Trello, Asana, or Slack) to stay on top of your to-do list and progress. Assign yourself weekly tasks that help you achieve the SMART goals you’ve set and track where you are in relation to the bigger goals on your career map.
Hold yourself accountable, or enlist the help of a mentor or coach to hold you accountable. Don’t hesitate to ask for help. Remember, this is your career, and you have the power to shape it!
HR professional development goals examples
Here are some examples of SMART HR professional development goals.
Mentoring SMART goal
“Within a month, I will establish a mentor relationship with someone I trust and admire, who is willing to invest their time and give me advice to help me grow.”
- Specific: Make a list of potential mentors, highlight the best matches, and arrange to meet with them over the next month.
- Measurable: You either will or won’t succeed at establishing the relationship.
- Achievable: It’s realistic to set up short meetings with people you already have a working relationship with and have one of them agree to mentor you.
- Relevant: A mentor will help you gain valuable advice and a fresh perspective on HR and your future in this industry.
- Time-bound: Decide on a mentor within a month, and set up regular monthly meetings with them over the following six months.
HR certification SMART goal
“I will deepen my general HR skills and competencies by completing an HR generalist online certificate program over the next four months.”
- Specific: Enroll in an online, self-paced program where you can gain an HR generalist certificate.
- Measurable: You will either succeed or fail to earn the certification.
- Achievable: The course requires 40 hours of study time, so you’ll have to devote 10 hours per month to it over the four months (around 2.5 hours weekly).
- Relevant: An HR generalist certificate will equip you with key HR skills and give you a solid understanding you can build on in future.
- Time-bound: You will complete this course within four months.
Time management SMART goal
“I will improve my time management skills over the next month by using Google calendar and a project management tool, so I can be 10% more productive.”
- Specific: Set up your Google Calendar, choose a project management tool, start blocking out your time, and determine the necessary steps to achieving your goals.
- Measurable: Use your calendar and project management tool to ensure you’re on track with your tasks.
- Achievable: Blocking out small sections of your day to work on your most important tasks is realistic. Be sure to notify your coworkers and manager of your unavailaible periods.
- Relevant: Knowing where your time is going and tracking the progress of your goals will help you get more done in less time.
- Time-bound: After doing this for at least one month, you can evaluate how successful it’s been in helping you manage your time more effectively.
Negotiation skills SMART goal
“I will build on my negotiation skills by attending a half-day training program at work once a week for the next month.”
- Specific: Sign up for the negotiation skills training program and put all the sessions into your work calendar.
- Measurable: The training program will either be completed or not.
- Achievable: It’s achievable to spend a total of four days on a training program over a period of a month.
- Relevant: Building your negotiation skills will help you lead better negotiations in your career, which will be particularly beneficial if you desire to grow into an HR business partner role.
- Time-bound: This training will be completed within a month.
Project management SMART goal
“I will develop my project management skills by taking a one-day training program, then leading a project to put my newfound skills into practice over the next three months.”
- Specific: Attend and complete the project management training program, then speak to your manager about taking on a side-project so you can practice the skills you’ve learned.
- Measurable: You either will or won’t complete the training program, and you either will or won’t successfully lead the side project.
- Achievable: Spending a single day at a training session and taking on an extra project at work is manageable, alongside your current responsibilities.
- Relevant: Learning to lead a project from the front is a valuable skill to learn, particularly if you hope to progress into an managerial HR role.
- Time-bound: You will complete the training in a day, and lead the project over three months.
Professional development plan examples for HR professionals
A professional development plan gives you a structured way to achieve your HR career goals. Creating such a plan empowers you to prioritize specific competencies, continuously improve your performance and effectiveness, and take charge of your career progression and professional growth. Let’s look at a few examples of an HR professional development plan.
Entry-level HR professional development plan example
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Mid-career L&D professional development plan example
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You can easily create an HR professional development plan based on your goals by downloading and filling in our free template below:
Over to you
Concrete HR professional development goals enable you to focus your career growth efforts effectively. Even if you don’t have a clear idea of which field of HR you want to progress into, you can set goals that will help you develop and improve core HR competencies, and future-proof your skill set regardless of the direction you take.
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