Column Pieter Vos: Personal development plan is vital

Feelings and ambience are often expressed in perceived temperature: "The atmosphere was cool. He looked at her with a cold stare. There were overheated discussions. He boiled over with anger'. But also: 'upon entering, a warm welcome awaited him'. 

Although it cannot be measured as precisely as ice or boiling water: do you ever measure "the temperature" of your company? 

A year ago I had an exit interview with an employee. I asked him why he was leaving us. What he told me proved to be an eye opener. It came down to the following: "Even though the pay is good, the benefits are fine and the perks are attractive; even though business-wise it's clear what we do and why, where we're going and what the goals are ... I'm missing a personal perspective in all of this." We immediately started working on it internally. The POP popped up.

POP stands for Personal Development Plan. Our younger generations often have to deal with it back in high school. For their study choices and internship reports, they have to answer questions like: What am I good/not good at, what do I want to achieve in the future, how am I going to do that and how do I make those steps SMART? At nearly all secondary schools, colleges and universities, thinking about these things is a regular part of the curriculum. They learn to reflect and evaluate early on. They make steps forward in their personal and professional development based on this. 

In these times of turmoil and uncertainty (war, climate change, housing shortages, etc.), the employee-of-today needs perspective. So I regularly walk around, to keep in touch with the workplace. We talk to individual employees about what is on their minds, in order to 'measure' the temperature in our company. Do you want to improve the climate as well? As an employer, offer your individual employees a fresh and future-proof development perspective.

Pieter Vos

Directeur Nutrilab