Understanding Seniority and Length of Service

Seniority is a measurement of time that is spent in a particular condition. For example, category seniority is the amount of time that an employee has spent in one category. The system measures from the date of entry into the category to the date of category change. If the employee has not changed categories, the date of the calculation is used as the end date. Corps seniority, grade seniority, and actual step seniority follow the same pattern. Since civil service positions carry different weights in seniority calculations, each civil service position has career advancement percentages that affect seniority and length of service calculations.

Length of service resembles seniority except that it uses career advancement percentages that are associated with lengths of service. The system uses steps, grades, corps and categories for lengths of service.

Seniority calculations for steps, grades, corps and categories relate to each other as follows:

• Grade seniority equals total actual step seniority for the steps of the grade.

• Corps seniority equals total grade seniority for the grades belonging to this corps.

• Category seniority equals total corps seniority for the corps belonging to the same category.

This explains how length of service calculations for steps, grades, corps and categories relate to each other:

• Grade length of service equals total actual step lengths of service.

• Corps length of service equals total grade length of service.

• Category length of service equals total corps length of service.

The system uses seniority values to calculate step increments and seniority and length of service are criteria for grade promotion.