WHAT WOULD YOU REPLACE SELECTION BY SENIORTY WITH

[reluctantpostie]

One thought. I f you went to hospital you would not to expect to have brain surgery performed by the cleaner or the porter because they have been there the longest.

No my friend, but you would expect to be treated by someone with the relevent experience, and the longer that experience the more likely you'd get a better job done ......or so they say

Well i can tell you that in my experience of working in Royal Mail for 15 years that the longer you have been there is no indicator of how well you do the job. There are people much more senior than me who, quite frankly, would last no more than a week in places i have worked before. (But that is a another argument on performance etc)

And there are people who are bottom of the seniority list who are probably better at the job than me.

But unfortunately seniority is a necessary evil in Royal Mail due to the nature of the job/management/union and workers attitudes.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Does seniority get used in any other Industry/workplace to determine who does what job?

Yes - The forces - The Police Service probably the Prison service. Plenty use it.

When i started work in a factory i went in and was given a job to do. I did that job until i left. I have never ever been able to understand the reason for constant change and swapping around of duties.

Seniority actually helps to stop the swapping of duties as people are more likely to stay on a duty if they picked it. Seniority also used to help when Management wanted to move posties from on duty to another every day as it used to be that if you had signed for a duty you could not be moved off of it except in exceptional circumstances.

One thought. I f you went to hospital you would not to expect to have brain surgery performed by the cleaner or the porter because they have been there the longest.

Sorry but that is the definition of a pointless definition. There are jobs within Royal Mail that are selected by skills rather than by seniority. Book Room, Dom Support, Locker Room, driving etc etc.

[reluctantpostie]

Seniority does not stop management moving you off a duty. They cannot move your start finish times, but what you do in the time you start and finish work is totally at the discretion of management. I see it happen everyday in my office. Regardless of if it was exceptional circumstances.

The duty belongs to the office, not the person. The person only picks that duty, if management want to move you they will and do.

I am not saying that we should not use seniority, because as an ex senior Branch Officer i know for a fact that if it was management assigning duties to people i would have the worse in my office!