We all know about the fate of the best laid plans, but what is to explain the fact that the more years of work experience we accrue, the less we feel like we have a clear vision for the rest of our career? Stats below show that workers who had been on the job for more than ten years were 10% less sure about their future work plans than entry-level workers when it came to answering our question, “Do you have clear goals and a plan for your career?”
The info comes courtesy of the latest reading of an ongoing study by Comparably. Over 10,000 employees responded to the question.
Just over half of workers say they have clear plans for their career. Males have a fairly negligible 2 percentage point lead over females in terms of answering “yes” to the question.
African-Americans are way ahead of the overall average for all employees when it comes to reporting that they have a clean plan in place for their working future. Hispanic/Latinos also were a few percentage points more positive about their plans than average. Asian/Pacific Islanders were in line with the overall average for male workers, with Caucasian respondents the least assured about their plans among the ethnicities.
When responses are broken up by department, it’s clear that workers from the executive suite are the most confident about the plan they have for their futures. Most CEOs plan on remaining CEOs, and it’s easy to work up a confident plan for the future of your job when you’re top dog. Nobody else is close to the executive average on this question, and most other departments hover around the just-over-fifty-percent average we saw from all workers at the top of the survey. Of all departments, employees in Customer Support and IT are the least confident about their career master plans.
When departmental responses are broken down by gender, we see that men are more often confident about their future career plans than women. Similar to the data we saw recently in regards to entrepreneurship, men seem to be slightly more encouraged in this culture to strike out on their own and believe in their plans as infallible. Whether this is a boon or a hindrance to that gender remains a question for the ages. That said, women – who are still struggling to shed centuries of disrespect in the workplace – in certain departments (Engineering, Executives, Legal) are more assured than men about their future job plans.
As stated above, confidence in future plans begins to waver with age. The high point for workers comes early, with 60% of Gen Z workers feeling like they’ve laid out a master plan for their careers that they’ll be sticking to. That number drops below 50% for the 46-50 age group, who are the least confident about this issue among all age groups. Averages rise slightly from there, as retirement plans begin to firm up for many workers.
Responses viewed by experience lay this somewhat dispiriting issue open very plainly. Over ten years, an employee’s sense that they have the power to sculpt their futures becomes shakier and shakier as the realities of their careers – and the difficulties of controlling their outcomes in a world where everyone else may have career plans too – begin to dawn on them.
Latest reading as of Jan 7..
