In some organisations, seniority is a factor for promotion whereas in others, performance is a factor.Write a response stating the advantages of both the positions. Then state which position will you choose and why.

The author of the topic observes that some organisations prefer senior employees for promotions whereas others choose performance as a factor for promotion. There are advantages for both these positions that shall be discussed in the forthcoming paragraphs.

Senior employees of an organisation are more experienced and there is no better way to learn than by experience. A person becomes mature by experience. Thus, promotion by seniority has an advantage in that that the senior experienced employee might, in most cases, be more knowledgeable than the fledgling with higher performance. Having experienced people at senior levels helps bring about proper balance in the hierarchy in that that the experienced employees might be able to perform well in a variety of situations.

Having performance as a major factor for promotion ahead of seniority also has certain advantages. Lesser experienced employees has fresher innovative ideas compared to old senior people. Thus, they might be able to perform better with those new ideas and methods of work. Also younger people at senior positions can keep the spirits high with the lively environment that they can maintain compared to seniors. This can be a major boost to the work environment as lively and happy employees tend to perform well.

However, I feel that neither seniority nor performance must be the sole factors for deciding promotions. The experience and performance of an employee must be equally instrumental in the decision of promotion. Because a blend of experience combined with high performance is the best quality in an employee deserving promotion. This way, it can be made sure that neither too young and inxeperienced employees with good performance are promoted nor the low performing senior employees are promoted. Also, an experienced as well as well performing employee will be able to perform equally well in various situations, favorable or unfavorable, by bringing into use, his/her experience in handling various situations. Consider a situation that demands delivering targets in very strict time limits. In such scenarios, inexperienced employees who does not have proper time management skills might not be able to achieve the target within the time frame. Also, the senior employee who is not performing well might not be able to handle the situation well. Thus, an ideal person in such a situation might be an experienced employee with good performance so that the situation is handled better as well as the targets are achieved.

Thus, after analysing the above factors, I can conclude that the combination of experience with good performance is the ideal choice as a factor in deciding promotions, even though both the factors have certain advantages.