By Murigi Macharia

Even as millions of employees lose their jobs due to the global financial crisis, the issue of career stagnation has become a major concern in many organisations.

Career stagnation refers to a condition of no movement, development or progress.

Locally, stagnation is so serious that the Directorate of Personnel Management (DPM) was late last year working on new guidelines to address succession management and career stagnation.

According to information from the DPM, the new guidelines will enable officers with the "required qualifications, experience and those with demonstrable ability to perform get an opportunity to be considered for promotion".

There are several reasons that lead to career stagnation.

Lack of adequate skills and acceptable knowledge levels is a reason you have been left in your current position as others move up the career ladder.

Employees who forget to upgrade their skills as soon as they get employed are likely to be forgotten when promotion opportunities arise.

Technology has lately made matters worse by making some functions obsolete. Some offices no longer need the services of secretaries and copy typists because senior officers can execute some critical functions within a modern and computerised office environment.

The solution for this category of workers is to upgrade their skills, seek job enlargement and enrichment.

Extra duties

Career progression can also be hindered by fear of challenging responsibilities by some workers. Some employees want to remain in the comfort of their current jobs.

Such people do not want to take extra responsibilities that comes with promotion and career progression.

Promotion comes with uncertainty, fears of inadequacy and failure and as such some employees would rather remain in their current positions. Such people hinder their own progress.

Fear of exposure is another reason that keeps some workers stagnated in one position.

Some workers would rather remain as junior employees or supervisors but never as managers where their inadequacies and weaknesses would be exposed. They would rather stagnate in their current positions.

Stagnation is also blamed on lack of room for promotion. This problem is common in small organisations with few layers of management, so one can stagnate in the same position for many years.

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