Question

Answer the following question:
Discuss any three advantages and any three disadvantages of seniority-based promotion.

Answer 1

Advantages of Seniority based Promotion:

• It is an objective means of distinguishing among personnel. Under this criterion, it is not the management but the system which ranks individuals.
• The measurement with this criterion is both simple and exact.
• The criterion is in consonance with our culture in which seniority is respected in all walks of life.
• The criterion gives a feeling of security and assurance to the individual who can calculate his promotion well in advance.
• Seniority, being valued as an asset, prevents people from leaving an organization. It thus reduces labor turnover.

Disadvantages of Seniority Based Promotion:

• Excessive emphasis on seniority leads to the promotion of incompetents. Oldest is not always the ablest. Accumulation of years of experience or length of service does not invariably produce ability. In any case, the demonstrated ability’ to perform a given job provides no assurance of the potential to perform at a higher level or in a different type of job, The “Peter principle” certainly is relevant in this context.
• When seniority is the only deciding factor in promotion, initiative inevitably withers away. Human nature being what it is. few people will take the trouble of qualifying themselves for the next rung up the ladder if they can achieve the same goal merely by “putting in the time.”
• The seniority criterion adversely affects the morale of meritorious workers and drives the ambitious and able men, with little service, out of the organization.