A study of individual reactions to career plateaus in the Natural Resources Management Branch of the operations division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to examine individual reactions to perceptions of career plateaus within one branch of the Corps of Engineers nationwide, and to interpret those reactions within the context of that organization's workforce demographics and corporate culture. The population for the study was 1,460 members of the Natural Resources Management Branch. An 85% response rate was achieved for the mailed survey to the sample of 800, resulting in 675 subjects.; General linear model techniques were used to examine the research questions (p ≤ .05). The perception of a career plateau was a significant predictor of intrinsic and extrinsic career satisfaction, of satisfaction with supervision on both interpersonal relationship behaviors and positive work abilities, and of affective well-being. A higher degree of perceived plateaus was related to (a) higher levels of dissatisfaction with the career and supervision variables and (b) lower affective well-being.; Besides the perception of a career plateau, other variables that were significantly related to the dependent variables included: (a) marital status was significantly related to intrinsic career satisfaction and affective well-being, (b) current pay grade was significantly related to extrinsic career satisfaction, (c) years until retirement was significantly related to extrinsic career satisfaction, (d) generational cohort was significantly related to extrinsic career satisfaction, (e) race and national origin was significantly related to satisfaction with supervisors' interpersonal relationship behaviors, and (f) years in present job were significantly related to satisfaction with supervisors' positive work ability (i.e., technical work skills).; The NRM workforce displayed demographic trends predicted by the literature, including those summarized as follows. First, the workforce is aging, with an average age of 42.8 years. Second, the overwhelming majority (69%) of the workforce is in the two cohorts of baby boomers.; Themes emerging from the qualitative data analysis included (a) the significant role of supervisors in how employees experience career plateaus, (b) perceptions of favoritism in promotion selections, and (c) the difficulties of balancing family and career.; This work extended the researcher's 1990 study of career plateauing in one Corps district. Based on findings, recommendations for organizational responses to career plateauing were provided.