A Study of Career Plateau in Education Sector Essay

If Employee’s jobs are filled with routine and boring tasks or if desired promotions are blocked in the organization, then they are likely to feel an intrinsic sense of loss and become skeptical about findings fulfillment in their careers Career plateau employees are likely to have demotivation and higher labour turnover because they want to advance their careers elsewhere in the environment Researcher find out the causes, difference of career plateau among the Admin Staffs, Support Staffs, Teaching Staffs, Technical Staffs in education sector, its effects and strategies to remove the career plateau. The Major finding of this study is that career plateau is a major contributing factor of employees dissatisfaction, organization commitment and employee turnover. Technical staffs have more career plateau. Management and other stakeholder to develop the best strategies to manage career plateau in the organization. Keywords: Career Plateau, Strategies, Employee turnover, Dissatisfa ction 1. Introduction Career plateau is not a new phenomenon, but there is a worrying situation about the rate at which it is becoming increasingly widespread in various organizations (Yama- moto, 2006; Lee, 2003). Many scholars on organizational careers’ have suggested that plateau is fast becoming a critical managerial and organizational issue which needs to be managed properly to avoid employee’s discontent (Burke and Mikkelsen, 2006; Tremblay and Roger, 2004; Tremblay et al., 1995). Career plateau is defined as the point where employees like hood of additional hierarchical promotion is very low. International Journal of Business and Management Tomorrow   Employees who have experienced career plateau would think that their employers have forsaken their careers (Lee, 2003). Career plateau has been used as antecedent to many undesirable work outcomes such as low satisfaction, high stress, poor performance and other withdrawal symptoms (Yamamoto, 2006; Lee, 2003; Choy and Savery, 1998). Career plateau has the potential to cause discomfort among the employees because lack of continued upward progression is considered as a yardstick to measure employee’s performance. Thus career plateau leads to poor performance. In any organizations upward movement in terms of promotion of employees is accompanied by increase in salary, power and status (Lee, 2003). Plateau employees are likely to have higher labour turnover because they want to advance their careers elsewhere in the environment. For many employees, the time comes when all career movement ceases. Some feel unchallenged, while others simply don’t have the motivation to move upward. It is management’s responsibility to pull the best from staff members at such times. Fortunately, this isn’t difficult when you are prepared with a game plan and a little understanding. * Definitions. Plateaued employees, one observer has written, are those who reach their promotional ceiling long before they retire. Structural plateauing occurs when opportunities for promotions end. The hierarchy in most institutions is designed like a pyramid, leaving room for only a select few at the top. Therefore, everyone eventually plateaus. The inabilit y to climb the career ladder is an emerging concern for employees in the 1990’s. With aging of the baby boom generation and shrinking of middle management positions brought about by recession, improvements in office technology, and mergers and acquisitions, there are fewer opportunities for advancements in office technology, and mergers and acquisitions, there are fewer opportunities for advancement (Weiner, Remer, & Remer, 1992). One significant vocational effect is plateauing, â€Å"a unique form of career stall† (milstein, 1990b p, 325) which can result in a feeling of malaise on the part of upwardly mobile individuals. This phenomenon is labeled plateauing because it resembles a long flat uninterrupted expanse with minimal contours and a sameness that stretches endlessly. If people’s jobs are filled with routine and boring tasks or if desired promotions are blocked, then they are likely to feel an intrinsic sense of loss and become skeptical about findings fulfillment in their careers. (Milstein, 1990a, P48) 2. Examine the causes of career plateau Examine the difference in plateauing among the various levels of staffs in education sector. Examine the effect of career plateau in the organization. Give suggestions to manage career plateau effectively to minimize employee intention to quit. 3. In the subsequent pages, an attempt is made to review the literature pertaining to career plateaus of the employees. The literature of these studies has been collected through various magazines, journal, website and other published sources. 3.1 Various types of career plateaus are being experienced by the employees in organization. According to Bardwick (1986), there are three types of career plateau which are very common in organizations and there are: Structural Plateaus:- represents occupational situations where advancement is unavailable due primarily to the pyramidal nature of organization hierarchies. Content Plateaus: – When no challenge remains in their job. Tasks have been mastered and little new or exciting remains to be learned. Life plateauing:-occurs when individuals believe they are trapped in their ongoing everyday routines, cycles, obligations, and relationships. They may lead them to have â€Å"the sense that there’s little fulfillment left in any area of life. As per Rita M. Choy, Lawson K. Savery, (1998). Organizations are under pressure to cope with factors such as resource scarcity, increased competition, slow economic growth, increased utilization of technology and an increase in acquisitions and/or mergers. All these can lead to downsizing of the workforce. Many organizations believe downsizing can reduce costs and increase competitiveness. However, flattening structures reduces the number of people needed in organizations and such practices escalate the plateauing ISSN. International Journal of Business and Management Tomorrow The present study explores the relationship between job satisfaction, organizational commitment and the plateauing phenomenon. Non-plateaued workers seem to have a better relationship with their organization and find coaching new staff more rewarding than plateauing workers. This finding is important because trainers must hold positive attitudes toward the company and this seems more likely when the person is not plateaued. Non-plateaued employees are also more likely to view the organization as encouraging job performance – another issue of importance to managers of organizations. Susir Kumar – CEO, Intelenet Global Services expresses, â€Å"In spite of all the buzz and hype progressive HRM creates, career plateau remains a regular phenomenon and a problem that HR managers across industries and organizations have to grapple with. It can be defined as reaching a level of complacency, in many cases leading to employee burnout. It is not that such employees are incompetent; however, there is a general feeling of ‘being stuck’. Such employees often harbour an illusion, that they have nothing more to achieve.† Sharing his opinion on the organizational ailment that is a stagnant employee, Aleem Merchant, director, Synapse Marketing Consultancy Pvt. Ltd says, â€Å"Employee plateauing is a disease that hampers almost every organization, big or small and today, this malady is threatening the very potential and future of the corporate world as fast as most lifestyle diseases. This too needs expert treatment and its own set of managerial medications.† In order to analyze this plague, we must dissect it to get to the root of the problem. â€Å"Plateaued employees could stem from boredom of routine work or just plain complacency. Very often, external stimulators such as excitement of new work or a hard reality session can help yank the employee out of his stupor,† reasons G Ravindran, CEO, and MD- SHRM India.   Potter, author of â€Å"Overcoming Job Burnout: How to Renewing Enthusiasm for Work†, contends that often plateauing exists in the minds of employees. â€Å"In many cases it may be an illusion.† she said. According to Potter, employees also can imagine themselves plateaued with they fail to adapt to the changing employment picture. â€Å"Sometimes the person is not blocked; they just don’t understand the rules of the game have changed.† she said. Some workers are frustrated trying to climb the corporate ladder, Potter said, unaware that the old traditional hierarchical construction no longer exists. Another cause of the illusory plateau, Potter said, is a worker who is â€Å"actually chronically depressed.† She explains that for a depressed individual, a new job acts as a â€Å"sort of self-medication,† giving the person a temporary high. However, Potter said, once that boost wears off, the employee goes back to feeling depressed and might be inclined to blame this condition on a lack of job satisfaction. â€Å"It’s another kind of unrealistic expectation.† When employees feel plateaued, Potter said, â€Å"They can start getting into this problem of burnout†Ã¢â‚¬â€a loss of motivation that can leave workers feeling helpless. She warned that burnout can lead to chronic absenteeism, anger, thievery, and substance abuse. Potter warned that any attempts at curbing burnout can be too little too late, because losing one’s motivation is akin to losing one’s spirit. â€Å"When that gets damages, it just doesn’t bounce back, † she said. Study Design and Methodology 100 samples selected from various education society of Pune by using the convenient sampling method. The following categories/Levels of employees are selected as respondents.   Teacher   Admin staffs (4.3) Professional /Technical staffs (4.4) Support staffs. 25 respondents from each category are selected from for the research. The Instrument, containing 50 items and 29 attributes, each query is ranked by the respondents according to a five point Likert scale.