Effects of Career Plateauing on Turnover: A Test of a Model

The structure of most organizations dictates that only 1% of the employees will retire before they reach a career plateau. It is estimated that the number of people perceiving they are career plateaued will only increase in the future since more unusually well-qualified candidates will be competing for a diminishing number of positions. Given that an estimated 80% of the work conducted in organizations is performed by employees who are career plateaued, it would be beneficial to better understand if these plateaued individuals are likely to remain with the organization despite being plateaued. Therefore adding career plateauing to an existing turnover model could be beneficial in furthering our understanding of the turnover process. As such the primary purpose of this research was the introduction of the concept of career plateauing into an existing turnover model to investigate potential effects on turnover. Results from this study showed that perceptions of begin career plateaued did account for variance in turnover and the degree to which one believed himself to be plateaued was positively associated with one's intent to leave an organization.