{"id":655,"date":"2007-05-02T01:00:57","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T09:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=655"},"modified":"2007-05-02T01:01:45","modified_gmt":"2007-05-02T09:01:45","slug":"plateauing-multiple-career-ladders-engaging-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=655","title":{"rendered":"Plateauing, Multiple Career Ladders, Engaging Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Knowledge@Wharton <a href=\"http:\/\/knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu\/signup.cfm;jsessionid=a8305840065cc4d3c15d7454217064e5a7a3?CFID=2766781&#038;CFTOKEN=43220079&#038;jsessionid=a8305840065cc4d3c15d7454217064e5a7a3\" target=\"_blank\">wrote<\/a> a few months ago about a \u201cnew\u201d phenomenon within middle manager ranks.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A number of men and women in middle management are increasingly reluctant to take the next step in their careers because the corporate ladder is not as appealing as it used to be, and the price to climb it is too high. &#8220;These people are still ambitious, and they are still driving. They just aren&#8217;t driving for the same things they were driving for 15 years ago.\u201d  ((Knowledge@Wharton, October 4, 2006.  \u201cPlateauing: Redefining Success at Work.\u201d  Retrieved from http:\/\/knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu on December 29, 2006.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Normally, I\u2019d make something of this, but I think this time I won\u2019t.  There are really two issues here.  The first is that HR has long recognized the need for multiple career progression opportunities to fit the differing needs of different professionals.  The second issue is perhaps cause for real concern: is the desire to sacrifice less increasing amongst the senior talent in our organizations?<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about the first because it\u2019s easier.  HR has long offered multiple career ladders recognizing that some people didn\u2019t want to get into management at all.  This is perfectly exemplified at the pharmaceuticals which have had to offer both career ladders for those interested in management jobs, and those interested in remaining research scientists.  Often these career ladders would include similar pay progression but still cater to the different demands of the employees.<\/p>\n<p>The second topic is more concerning.  There are several possible contributing factors to the demotivation of the workforce.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First, work-life balance seems to be more important than ever.  In the 80\u2019s and 90\u2019s, dual income households rose steadily at the sacrifice of family.  The balance seems to be returning, and I think this is a good thing.<\/li>\n<li>Second, the generations of employees after the baby boomers are far wealthier than prior generations.  While the total level of life satisfaction has not gone up noticeably, the total real income per capita has risen almost three-fold.  What this means is that the baby boomers truly did need to work and progress in their careers to get ahead.  Today\u2019s middle class worker however lives a similar lifestyle to those who would have been considered upper middle or even borderline upper class a generation ago.  My opinion is that the pure need to progress up the compensation ladder is simply not as strong as it once was.<\/li>\n<li>The generation of millennials now entering the workforce and to some degree the mid-career professionals have had a much easier time at work and life.  Having had wealthier parents and being raised in the 80\u2019s, 90\u2019s and early part of this century, these workers are far more interested in the global environment than their work environment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>None of these factors is necessarily a bad thing for employees.   For employers, it provides an interesting dilemma about employee engagement and the cultivation of senior talent.  If senior talent does not want to be involved in the succession plan because they have already achieved \u201cenough,\u201d the total pool of available candidates has diminished.  We\u2019ve talked about not only the pool of senior talent in terms of talent management, but it also effects the ability to compete globally as countries such as India and China produce ever increasing quantities of educated professionals.<\/p>\n<p>So once again we return to the topic not of work life balance or of compensation, but we need to talk about engagement.  How do we make our organizations and our work meaningful to our employees?  Perhaps this idea has a limited lifespan, and it needs to be combined with work-life and engagement to be successful.  At any rate, it\u2019s time to start thinking about the workforce and what shape it will be taking in the coming years \u2013 that is if you\u2019re not already deeply concerned about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Knowledge@Wharton wrote a few months ago about a \u201cnew\u201d phenomenon within middle manager ranks. A number of men and women in middle management are increasingly reluctant to take the next step in their careers because the corporate ladder is not&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,10,20,32,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compensation","category-engagement","category-talent-management","category-work-life","category-workforce-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}