A Model for Career Path Approach to Eliminate Career Plateauing Among the Employees of Maskan Bank

1- The new attitude toward career management considers it a tool for human resource development. The main goal of career management is to balance the organization's needs with those of employees. Job plateauing is a crucial career management factor affecting organizational outcomes. It is a point in an employee's professional life where the possibility of vertical promotion or increasing job responsibilities seems extremely weak or unlikely. In service organizations, due to the type of work and the need to have highly motivated employees with high work spirit, it is doubly important to pay attention to job plateauing. Therefore, the current research was to explain this phenomenon among the employees of Maskan Bank.
 
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The career path is an arrangement of the work-life according to employees' attitudes and motivations they have to perform their work roles. Career path allows employees to see their future direction in the organization as well as the abilities and skills needed to be prepared with enthusiasm for the new position. Accordingly, the career path is capable of reducing job plateauing. A career path requires motivation and a clear view of progress that can be created by career management. Indeed, through career path development, career management can reduce the possibility of job plateauing.
 
3- Since this research seeks to develop a model to eliminate job plateauing with a career path approach, it is an applied study. According to the method, it is a descriptive survey. Following a career path approach in the qualitative phase, the indicators of job plateauing were identified based on reviewing the literature and conducting semi-structured interviews. Then, they were categorized using an exploratory factor analysis. After that, a Delphi questionnaire that was designed from identified indicators was provided to experts. The statistical population of the qualitative phase is comprised of Maskan Bank experts in employment and human resource management and university professors. In the quantitative phase, the staff of Maskan Bank is the statistical population. Based on Morgan's table, a sample size of 384 was selected by simple random sampling.
 
4- RESULTS & The results indicated three initial dimensions for the model of job plateauing. During the Delphi process, another dimension was added called social plateauing. According to experts, social plateauing means an employee prevents accepting more responsibilities due to their dependence on other people (e.g., parents) or a second job. Nowadays, to prevent an imbalance between work and personal life, employees consider both their personal and family lives and may prefer to remain in their current jobs instead of holding more job responsibilities in higher positions.
 
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
Due to changes in organizational environments, job plateauing is considered one of the most critical issues related to career management. According to the results of Delphi, job plateauing is comprised of four dimensions, including structural, content, work-life, and social plateauing. Adjusting the job flatness with other factors provides a necessary context for increasing vitality, social harmony, social interaction, job and life satisfaction, social responsibility, social participation, and growth. On the one hand, considering the organizational structure of Maskan Bank, the possibility for its employees to be promoted in the hierarchy of positions is not possible or done slowly. On the other hand, its field of specialized activity (housing and construction) makes most of employees' affairs monotonous and repetitive. Therefore, to reduce the rate of job plateauing, it is suggested that employees of Maskan Bank participate in decision-making and that managers include organizational solidarity in the organization's plans to decrease job conflict.