An examination of career progress in a downsizing organization

The quest for optimal productivity is fueling organizations' desire to decrease the fixed costs associated with human resources. To achieve this end, downsizing has become a very prevalent trend in industry. As this trend continues, employees are experiencing a constantly changing work environment. The present research was pursued in an effort to identify the individual characteristics that were related to employee success in a changing organizational environment. The primary purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to examine the relationship between specific individual characteristics and employee success in a changing environment; and (2) to examine the potential loss of human resource talent that is associated with organizational transitions. Based on a synthesis of organizational survivor and organizational change literature, several research hypotheses were forwarded. In order to examine these hypotheses, performance results from a comprehensive managerial assessment center were used as indices of specific individual characteristics (e.g., problem solving skill, leadership ability). All individuals considered in this study participated in this assessment center as a part of the re-organization initiative, but none of the individuals in this study lost their job as a direct result of their performance in the comprehensive assessmentIndividual characteristics were compared with career progress data obtained for study participants six years after the assessment center results were gathered. Specifically, the career progress of 219 individuals employed at a large southeastern utility was examined in this study. Results suggest that individuals who are capable problem solvers and demonstrate strong initiative experience the greatest career progress in this organization. Additionally, the previous assumption that a significant proportion of key employees are lost during a transition was not supported in this study. Supplemental analyses that investigated the predictive validity of assessment center ratings in a downsizing organization replicated previous assessment center validity studies. Findings from this research can help provide organizational decision makers with guidelines for meaningful employee characteristics to consider prior to making downsizing decisions. Suggestions for both future research and applications of the findings in the present study are discussed.