Who can use this feature?

Users

Available on:

All Culture Amp subscriptions that include Develop.

Overview

Development Plans help you reflect on your career goals and take practical steps to achieve them. They’re designed to support meaningful conversations with your manager and give you a clear roadmap for growth.

Development plans in Culture Amp are competency-based, ensuring your professional growth aligns with the specific strengths and behaviors your organization values.

Competency-based plans allow for a structured way to identify your strengths, growth areas, and goals. Each step connects to specific competencies with detailed descriptions, levels, and learning resources to guide your development.

You’ll build your plan through three simple workflows:

Step	Time	Action	Outcome
1. Know Yourself	~10 minutes	Reflect on your motivators, strengths, and long-term aspirations. Optionally, select your dedicated Development Manager.	A clear objective that guides your development plan
2. Build Your Plan	~20 minutes	Choose one growth area at a time. Set clear goals and actions linked to the skills and behaviors you want to develop.	An actionable plan with clear goals and steps.
3. Review with your Manager	Varies	When you’re finished, share your plan with your manager to get feedback and support.	Your plan is set to active and ready for action

Getting Started

Once Develop has been enabled for your organization, you can access it anytime:

From your Home page, go to Develop > Development Plans.
Follow the prompts to create your first plan.

Steps to Create Your Plan

1. Know Yourself (~10 minutes)

Before reflecting on your strengths, you have the option to nominate a dedicated Development Manager to support your plan:

In the Know Yourself flow, use the Development Manager selector to search and assign who will support your plan.
If you select a Development Manager, they will receive all plan notifications and gain visibility across all your current, past, and future plans.
If you do not select a Development Manager, your Direct (Line) Manager will automatically receive notifications and visibility.
Your selection here is an individual-level setting and will apply to all your plans until you change it.

Note: Your direct manager is automatically granted access to your plan, so they will not appear as a development manager option. Only select an additional development manager if required.

Continue the Know Yourself Flow:

Click Next to proceed to questions about how effective the development process is for you. Your responses are anonymous. These responses are aggregated and shared as part of a group. Rate how strongly you agree with the statements.
Click Next to progress to the page where you select Your Motivations.
- Think about the things you enjoy at work. What aspects of your day-to-day work give you the most energy? What do you want to do more of in the future?
- Think about day-to-day tasks and activities that give you the least energy and motivation. They might be things you put off or avoid.
- We recommend selecting up to 3 most and least motivating factors
  - You can select from the list provided, and optionally add 2 more custom selections at the bottom of the page.
Click Next to progress to the page where you select Your Strengths. These might be things that come easily to you or things that people have given you positive feedback on.
- You’ll be prompted to select at least one core competency as a strength.
- Each competency includes a Details view, with a description, levels, and linked learning resources.
- If your organization has made at least one job group from Career Paths visible to employees, you can add a role. This will surface specific competencies associated with that role, which you can add as strengths.
- You can also add additional strengths in free-text form.

Adding a Role to Your Development Plan

If your organization has made at least one job group from Career Paths visible to employees, you can add a role to your plan during the selection of strengths (step 1) or growth areas (step 2).

Adding a role connects your plan directly to the competencies associated with that role. You can then select those competencies as strengths or growth areas when building your plan.
Choose your current role if you want to deepen your skills, or a future role if you’re preparing for career progression.
You can include multiple roles in the same plan.
To browse available roles, click on the Career Paths view.

Note: New roles and competencies don’t automatically appear in existing Development Plans. If a role or its associated competencies aren’t available in the drop-down, they would have been added to the competency library after you started your plan. To access them, you’ll need to create a new plan.

Tip: Culture Amp provides nine ready-made competencies as default options for employees unless your Account Administrator customizes them. View: Culture Amp’s nine ready-made competencies

4. Click Next to reach the Career goals & development objective page, where you will be asked to answer two questions:

How clear are you on where you want to be in your career or job in a few years time?
Where do you want to be in your career or job in a few years?

Don't worry if you're unclear. It's common for people not to be 100% sure, and these responses can be changed in the future.

5. Click Next and enter your main Development objective.

You will be asked if you are focusing on your current role, a new role, a promotion, or something else
You will then be asked to write a short paragraph describing your development objective over the next 6 months
These can be updated later, so don't overthink it if you're unclear.
Once complete, click Finish Part 1 to proceed to Part 2.

2. Build Your Plan (~20 minutes)

Now that you've completed the Know Yourself section, it's time to turn your plan objective into a specific goal and actions to get there.

Click Begin Part 2 to get started.
On the Your growth areas page, select the competencies you want to develop and improve.
- You’ll be prompted to choose at least one competency as a growth area (we recommend up to 3).
- Same as with selecting strengths, each competency includes a Details view with a description, levels, and learning resources.
- The learning resources are designed to help you plan specific actions that build your capabilities.
- (optional) Add a role to select specific competencies associated with that role.
Click Next and turn your growth area into a development goal
- Select one Growth area to base your goal on.
- Set the Goal title, description, due date, and action items.
- Click Next to finalize the goal.
Select whether you would like to create another goal or end things for now, and click Next.
Answer the short survey about how you're feeling about your development after moving through the process. Click Finish to share the plan with your manager (and development manager if selected).

3. Review with your Manager

Now that your development plan has been shared with your manager, you can review it with them during a 1-on-1 or development conversation.

If any changes need to be made, you can action those during this review process.

Once you're ready, click Mark plan as reviewed to publish the goals and activate the plan.

Note: Once the plan is activated, new goals can still be added, and edits can still be made.

Access and Visibility

The visibility and notification recipient is determined by your Development Manager setting:

If you nominate a Development Manager (DM), they will receive all plan and cycle notifications, and they will gain view access to all your past, current, and future plans and linked development goals.
If you do not nominate a DM, your Direct (Line) Manager receives the notifications.
Your Direct (Line) Manager always retains view access to your development goals.

Manager Access

Your Development Plan is shared with your nominated Development Manager. If you haven't selected a Development Manager, your plan's visibility and notifications will fall back to your Line Manager.

If your Direct Manager changes in your employee profile, your selected Development Manager remains the primary support person until you change them.
You and your assigned Development Manager can use the plan to track progress and set new goals throughout the year.

Notifications and Reminders

Employee Confirmation emails – Sent after you complete each workflow. Once you finish Build Your Plan, your assigned Development Manager is also prompted to schedule a 1-on-1 with you.

Manager Reminders – Sent every three days (maximum of two) until you complete the step. Completing a step cancels reminders for the previous one.

Check In Regularly

Use 1-on-1s to review your progress with your manager, update goals, and keep your plan relevant throughout the year.

Deleting a Development Plan

To remove a plan you no longer need, make sure it has been closed first, and follow these steps:

Navigate to Previous Plans.
Select the plan you want to delete.
Click Delete Plan.

Warning: Deleting a plan permanently removes the associated goals. This action cannot be undone.

Manager Experience

Development Managers can give feedback on active Development Plans at any time:

Open the employees plan and click Give Feedback.
A new tab opens where you can enter your feedback.
Click Send Feedback.

Feedback appears on the employee’s profile and remains visible throughout the year.

If an employee’s Development Manager changes, the new manager gains access and can continue capturing feedback.

FAQs

Question	Answer
Can I change my Development Manager?	Yes. You can nominate or change your Development Manager in the Know Yourself step of plan creation or from your Develop overview page. Your choice acts as a dedicated support person who receives notifications and has visibility over all your plans. If you do not nominate a development manager, your Direct (Line) Manager is automatically assigned for support and notifications. If you do select a development manager, your direct manager will still have access to view the plan, but will not receive notifications about it.
Can I assign a different Development Manager for each of my individual development plans?	No, not at this time. The Development Manager role is set for you as a person, not for a specific plan. Your selection applies to all your current, past, and future development plans and goals. If you change your Development Manager, the new person will gain visibility across all your development activities immediately.
Who can see my Development Plan?	Your Development Manager (if set) and your Direct Manager.
What happens if I don’t have a Direct Manager assigned in my employee profile?	The plan remains accessible only to you until a Direct Manager is added in your employee data by your HR Team.
Is Develop available in languages other than English?	Yes. Develop is available in multiple languages. Learn more.
Can my Development Manager delete or change my goals?	No. Visibility doesn’t grant delete rights. Only the goal owner (you) can delete goals. Development Managers and Direct Managers can view and comment, but not delete the goals themselves.
Can I export my plan?	No, exporting isn’t available yet.
Can I reopen a closed plan?	No. Closed plans can’t be reopened, but creating a new plan will pre-fill some details from the previous one.
Is there a character limit for development objectives?	No, there’s no character limit for development objectives.
Will deleting a goal affect my Development Plan?	If you delete a goal, the action is permanent and cannot be undone. The goal will be removed from all views, including your Development Plan if it was created as part of it. Deleting a goal will not affect the rest of your Development Plan, the other goals and development plan details will remain unchanged.
Why do options from my previous plan appear in my new one?	Information from the Know Yourself step carries over automatically, since it tends to change less often than other details.

Related pages:

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Creating a Development Plan