Unions generally prefer promotions based on seniority for unionized jobs.

Seniority is the length of time that an individual has served in a job or worked for an organization. Seniority can bring higher status, rank, or precedence to an employee who has served for a longer period of time. And it generally means employees with seniority earn more money than other employees doing the same (or very similar) work.

Seniority is important in some private sector establishments and among professions, skilled trades, and union-represented workplaces. Forward-thinking organizations are less likely to provide a preference for senior employees unless the preference is part of the factors considered in salary, promotion, layoff, and other workplace employment decisions.

In evaluations of employees, other considerations in addition to seniority include the employee's contribution to the accomplishment of work goals, building successful relationships with other employees, a commitment to developing and maintaining the desired workplace culture, and a commitment to the creation of an environment that helps employees grow and succeed.

Seniority Is Significant in Union-Represented Workplaces

In a union-represented workplace, seniority drives the majority of decisions made about employees. These decisions include such areas as employee wages, designated work hours, vacation time, promotions, overtime, preferred jobs, preferred shifts, cross-training opportunities, and other employee benefits and privileges.

That's because the terms and conditions of employment are agreed to in a union contract that then governs all decisions made about employees, including their working conditions, time off, and general opportunities. Longer-term senior employees have an advantage over shorter-term employees regardless of contributions, skills, or performance.

It is also true of skilled trade workers when represented by a union. The decision as to who becomes an apprentice and learns a skilled trade is negotiated by a union.

In a union-represented workplace, if a job is eliminated or a layoff becomes necessary, senior employees have job rights over recent employees. In these cases, an employee with seniority may even be reassigned to take over the job of a newer employee when the senior employee's job is eliminated.

Nonunion Workplaces 

If seniority is used by nonunion employers as a basis for pay increases or promotions, it's usually considered in addition to factors such as employee contributions, performance, experience, and job fit.

Employers value senior employees who effectively contribute for their experience, organizational knowledge, product and customer knowledge, and loyalty.

Employers do not value senior employees who fail to contribute and create a dilemma. They're expensive because of their higher salaries, and they may be setting a bad example for less-senior employees. In this case, their jobs will not be protected.

Company Layoffs

Seniority becomes important when employers make the unhappy decision to lay off employees. Employment lawyers recommend seniority as a factor in their layoff decisions. Laid-off employees are also less likely to slap employers with discrimination charges if the layoffs are done according to seniority.

Employment Decisions

Even in workplaces that don't consider seniority in employment-related decisions, employers may still honor seniority in other ways, including employee engagement and retention.

Organizations may also recognize the longevity of employees with service awards, mentoring opportunities, longevity recognition, public preference for sharing organizational knowledge, and key assignments.

Encouraging longevity from employees benefits an organization by cultivating senior employees with company knowledge and experience. But unless the employer is obligated by contract, seniority should never be the only factor considered in employment decisions.

In some workplaces, it is a fact of working life that the longer someone had been with the organization, the better her benefits will be. This is known as seniority, and the benefits could range from additional paid vacation to first call on the best shifts and overtime. Although seniority provides a way to reward long-serving employees, critics argue that the system needs an upgrade. That's because it rewards people based on longevity, and not according to merit.

Tip

Under the seniority system, the length of time that someone has served in an organization confers a higher rank, salary or status, regardless of merit.

What Is the Seniority System?

Seniority is nothing but the length of time an employee has served in a specific job role or with a particular company. If the company operates a seniority system, then a senior employee will enjoy certain privileges over new or junior employees – most commonly, this would be a higher salary, preferential shifts, a few extra days of paid vacation time – or opportunities for promotion.

Who Uses the Seniority System?

Any organization can reward people based on seniority, but the concept is a bedrock of trade unionism. In a union-represented workplace, seniority underpins many of the decisions made about employees. For example, decisions about work hours, vacation time, wages, how overtime is allocated, preferred shifts and other benefits will be negotiated by the union, and the unions give the advantage to the longer-term senior employees over newer, more junior employees.

Historically, most junior unionized workers have accepted the seniority rule as fair even if they personally did not benefit. That's because new workers will one day become old-timers, at which point they will reap the rewards of seniority. The system is perceived as a fair standard, since everyone will enjoy seniority at some point in his career.

Is the Seniority System Legal?

There is no law creating the seniority system. Rather, it is based on a series of collective agreements between employers and trade unions. Without this standard, it is argued, workers would be forced to compete against each other to gain the boss' favor. The goal is to protect employees from employer abuse such as the boss favoring a family member whenever a position is open.

Also, bear in mind that the seniority system only permits those who have been working with the organization the longest to receive certain work benefits first. It does not prevent other workers from obtaining the same benefits. As such, while the seniority may seem discriminatory to some, as a policy it is legal. The exception would be if the seniority system was operated in a manner which caused discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, age and other protected classes.

Advantages of Seniority in the Workplace

Especially in unionized workplaces, seniority can often play a vital role in the success of individual and the company. Here are some of the advantages:

Training benefits. Senior staff are valuable employees who become knowledge-leaders in the organization. They're essentially a free training resource, passing their knowledge and experience on the the next generation. The seniority system rewards these efforts.

Job security. The seniority rule protects those who have achieved seniority from being laid off. Unions have their own rules regarding lay off but generally, protections are in place to ensure newer employers are laid off before those with the highest levels of seniority. This protects older, more experienced workers who tend to have the toughest time finding a job in the labor market.

Increased loyalty. One of the primary advantages of a seniority system is it increases loyalty from workers. People recognize that if they remain with the company, they gain access to better paychecks and promotion opportunities. For the company, this should result in lower staff turnover and all its associated replacement costs.

Predictability. Some workers want to know where the next pay rise and promotion is coming from and, for them, the seniority system can be a godsend. Knowing that your salary and benefits will rise with every year of tenure is reassuring for many who budget around this relative predictability.

Disadvantages of Seniority: Where's the Merit?

Non-union employers might also use seniority as a basis for promotions and pay increases, but it's usually considered alongside other factors such as knowledge, the accomplishment of work goals, experience and cultural fit. That's because seniority, of itself, is not a measure of job performance. It's perfectly possible for someone with a 20-year tenure in an organization to perform worse than someone who has only been there for six months.

Performance can be measured by how well someone performs her job role. It distinguishes an employee who works hard from someone who does not - and it distinguishes someone who goes the extra mile from someone who only goes through the motions. Seniority comes with experience. It should translate to better performance, but there's no guarantee that a senior person will have more talent or drive than her junior team members.

This is the main criticism of seniority – that it values longevity over merit. If an under-performing employee is promoted solely on the basis of seniority, then that company could end up paying more for an employee who is not achieving as much as a less-senior (and therefore cheaper) colleague.

Disadvantages of Seniority: Hinders Recruitment

What happens then, if salaries are awarded based on seniority - rather than on merit? This sends a message that an employee is considered worthy of compensation for the length of his service - and not for the quality of his work. To many, this feels like an unjust system – employees with seniority earn more money than other employees doing the same (or better) work, and the cream is not allowed to rise to the top of the corporate hierarchy.

It can even signal career disaster for ambitious junior employees who want to advance their careers as quickly as possible. These employees may see little point in over-delivering at their jobs when it's loyalty, not talent, that gets rewarded. As a result, they may choose to avoid jobs with seniority systems that might stifle their ambition.

Even in the unionized sector, critics argue that in today's knowledge economy, seniority is likely to hinder recruitment. Suppose, for instance, that a company wants to hire an electrical power-line installer, where skills are in short supply. The newcomer would be the first to be allocated shifts that did not suit him. Since he has the luxury of choosing his employer, he may decide to take his skills elsewhere.

Why Has Seniority Declined in Importance?

While seniority wage profiles are as steep as ever in the union sector, non-union employers place much more emphasis on occupational expertise. A system that holds onto senior employees at the expense of talented juniors is a little unpalatable to most companies. We live in an era of equal opportunities where everyone who performs well should be given the benefits they deserve.

Plus, the nature of work is changing. Technology evolves so quickly that experience may not afford the benefits it once did. The old ways of doing things can quickly become obsolete, to the point where it's the newcomers with their up-to-date skills and latest thinking that add the most value to the organization, not the people who have been with the company the longest. Hence, the seniority system is slowly disappearing.

That's not to say that employers don't honor seniority – they do, but in different ways. For example, a company might offer service awards, key assignments or mentoring opportunities as a way of recognizing seniority. These rewards work because they honor longevity, but they don't conflate it with merit and thus overlook the high-achieving, less experienced members of the team.

Which of the following is a disadvantage generally associated with recruiting from internal sources?

Is the inclination of a manager to rate most employees performance near the middle of the performance scale?

Is an aggregation of two or more Micromotions and is usually thought of as a complete entity?

Which of the following is a typical disadvantage associated with employee referral?