Employees, especially those who continue to work for the same organization for a long time and those

who belong to the core of an organization, often reach career plateaus. To people working in human resources jobs, they present a special class of challenge that is hard to tackle without active cooperation from the affected person. However, more often than not, an employee stuck on a career plateau refuses to recognize that he or she has been trapped by a career barrier and will refuse help at its very mention. By definition, a career plateau is a point in the career of an employee where the possibility of vertical promotion within the official hierarchy becomes very low or absent altogether. When faced with someone on a career plateau, the human resources professional must determine the opportunities for lateral growth that exist for the concerned employee. Then, he or she needs to select and present acceptable options to keep the trapped employee engaged and on the move. When dealing with employees stuck on career plateaus, those in human resources jobs have three principal tasks to perform: 1. Preventing the stagnating employee from becoming ineffective. This involves convincing the employee that stagnation doesn't necessarily mean failure and then directing him or her toward any avenue for personal development and growth that exists. 2. Integrating all relevant career-related information so that problems can be anticipated and treated as early as possible. To carry out this function, a thorough and effective performance appraisal system is necessary.

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Employees who have worked at the same job for a number of years often find themselves frustrated when they reach a plateau.

3. Managing frustrated employees and others who have become ineffective through stagnation. Open communication between the stagnating employee and people in human resources jobs is essential to this function. Five Effective Strategies for Dealing with Employees Stagnating on Career Plateaus This critical issue needs to be handled carefully by human resources professionals. Stagnating employees often refuse to budge and allow themselves to be overtaken by frustration. The immediate absence of opportunities for vertical advancement also prevents human resources professionals from instilling encouragement. Five simple strategies for dealing with the situation are: 1. Provide alternative means of recognition. The stagnating employee can be given special assignments and tasks of special importance, like training new employees, representing the organization to others, or participating in brainstorming sessions. 2. Develop ways to make current jobs more satisfying. This can be attained by creating competition on the job and personal rewards.

3. Revitalize through reassignment. Systematically switch the stagnating employee to different positions at the same level that can be handled given his or her core skill set. 4. Use self-development programs. Instead of preparing employees who have reached career plateaus for future jobs, prepare them to perform their present jobs better. 5. Change managerial attitudes. Managers and human resources professionals should never give up and start neglecting the stagnating employee.

6. Realistic job previews (RJPs) are devices used in the early stages of personnel selection to provide potential applicants with information on both positive and negative aspects of the job (Premack & Wanous, 1985). 7. The employee exchange or psychological contract between employer and employee is at the heart of this concept (Shore & Tetrick, 1994). Being hired after use of the RJP, the employee enters into the contract with their eyes open, aware of what the organization will provide to them (pay, hours, schedule flexibility, culture, etc.) and also what will be expected from them (late hours, stress, customer interaction, high urgency, degree of physical risk, etc.). 8. High turnover of new hires can occur when they are unpleasantly surprised by an aspect of their job, especially if that aspect is especially important to them. For example, if they take the job with an understanding that they won't have to work weekends, then are immediately scheduled for Saturday night, it undermines trust and the psychological contract is breached. Better informed candidates who continue the application process are more likely to be a good fit with the position, and the ones who choose not to continue save themselves time pursuing a job or company that wasn't right for them. The hiring organization saves time on testing and interviewing only those candidates with a strong chance of success.