The need of continued existence and escalation, in this rapid altering environment has forced the enterprises to dwindle their hierarchical positions, leading to slow rate of promotion and increase in competition among the employees. Thus, employees hit a terrain in career termed as career plateau, perceived negatively as a phase of no new opportunities and challenges, which results in dropdown of their performance. This article tries to look into the different rationales behind plateauing and change the way of thinking from pessimistic to more optimistic by adopting the right approaches.

Career plateau is an apparent fact which is not new and has much been in talk for more than three decades. However, today it has gained the momentum and become a critical organizational issue due to the contemporary changing organizational, environmental and personal aspects. Career plateau is the immobility career in organization which relates to the movement up the hierarchy as the only source of career success (Choy and Savery, 1998). In the current circumstances, most of the employees believe that getting promotions frequently, moving vertically upward in the hierarchy and bagging superior packages are the primary gauge to success. They are not concerned to work in the same job or the same organization for long. Sometimes, organizations due to the external demands, also go for reengineering, rightsizing, downsizing and flattening of hierarchy. All these expectations and demands lead the human element in the organization to reach a stagnant phase addressed as career plateau.

Career plateau has been seen as being fundamentally unfavorable to workers' satisfaction. The individuals lose their morale and their involvement. Their commitment towards work also reduces. This in turn acts as the foundation of decline in an individual as well as organizational effectiveness and efficiency gets affected. But this philosophy actually leads to the narrowness of perceptive. This article provides an understanding of the reasons behind career plateau and looks at it as an opportunity to redesign and rebuild a new pathway.

Today's jagged economic and business conditions (like the recent economic meltdown in various developed and developing countries) have forced the organizations to bring constant changes and move along at a rapid pace. Any organization that is not willing to adapt to these changing demands have to move out and make way for other players. They face the threat to survival. The organizations therefore, have to be more proactive, responsive, swift, less bureaucratic and less hierarchical.

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