Can a Senior Employee Be Assigned to Work Under a Junior? Seeking Guidelines and Insights

Guidelines for Posting Under a Junior Employee

Can a person be posted under someone who is junior to them? I have tried to find this information in existing rules but could not find any guidelines. In practice, when we come across an incapable or non-performing employee and decide to place them under a junior employee, the senior employee often protests, claiming that their seniority is being overlooked. Please guide me on the guidelines regarding this situation.

Regards,
[Username]

This is in addition to what Bhaskar has said. You need to give a little more information. My questions are as below:

- Are you from Government Service, PSU, or Private Sector?
- Since when has the employee had "poor" performance?
- What efforts did you take to improve his performance?
- How is the performance appraisal conducted?
- Do you have a formal PMS well in place?
- What kind of training did you provide to improve his performance?
- If the performance was poor, then why is he continuing in the current position? Why was he not sacked? At least, why was he not demoted?
- For how many years has he been slogging in the current designation?
- Did you try placing him in another department?

Does this person have some connection with the labor union? Does management want to keep this person in good humor because he is close to some very senior person from management?

Though information is not complete, I have a feeling that the person has gotten into the groove. Now, when you brought a sudden change, he is resisting it to the hilt. Hitherto, he enjoyed his stasis, and now this displacement has irritated him.

Stickiness to the position is human nature. Notwithstanding poor performance, if our ministers stick to their chairs, then why not this ordinary mortal? Certain ministries are identified with certain persons. Persons are rewarded with ministries due to political considerations. Now, in your case, first confirm what were the considerations that led to this situation, then we will discuss further.

Last Comments: By the way, before uploading a post, you could have checked how other members have written their posts. If you had done that, you would have observed the basic anomaly of writing the entire post in block capital letters. Hope you are aware that writing SMS, email, or posts on social media in block capital letters is against business etiquette. If not, then please take this opportunity to educate yourself.

Thanks,

Dinesh V Divekar

Bhaskar and Dinesh V Divekar have given you some sound responses based on the limited information and raised valid questions. I will add another question. Please let us know whether the senior person working under a junior-ranked individual is a temporary situation, such as working on a project. If it is not temporary, then why are you not promoting the junior to a higher rank than that of the senior?

Could you put yourself in the shoes of the senior and kindly tell us what would be your reaction if you were in the position of working under a person junior to you?

I am not sure whether yours is just a hypothetical question or a genuine one arising from a real-life situation. Whatever it may be, the answer is very simple if you are not biased. Irrespective of the type of organization, the ultimate goal is the attainment of the desired end. People are hired based on their efficiency and allotted different roles to be played. Efficiency is a relative attribute that differs from person to person or at times from situation to situation in respect of the same person. So, what is important is one's effectiveness in the assigned role-play.

Seniority and Effectiveness

Though seniority is generally determined by age, length of service, or experience, the ultimate determinant would be one's effectiveness in performing in a given position. Here, effectiveness refers to competence. That's why certain jobs are called senior positions. Non-performers cannot occupy senior positions regardless of how senior they are in other respects. However, the other points raised by M/S Dinesh and Simhan cannot be brushed aside in real-life situations.

Regards

There are plenty of instances in the private sector when a junior becomes the boss, and the senior reports to them. At least I know of one instance in the public sector as well. In some cases, it may be the very same junior who once reported to their senior at the time of joining. With the passage of time and based on performance, the roles can get reversed. So what matters is performance and contribution rather than chronological seniority.

Regards,
V. Raghunathan