Supermood allows you to filter survey results to get a better understanding of the different sentiments within your company. One of these analysis filters is the Entry date, which allows us to automatically calculate seniority.
In this article:
Why Seniority
Several studies have highlighted the influence of seniority on the employee experience and particularly on work engagement. Depending on whether an employee joined the company 6 months ago or 14 years ago, his or her vision of the company and attachment to it will be very different.
We have therefore created seniority groups to allow administrators and results viewers to access an analysis that is even closer to the daily reality of employees.
In addition to advanced analysis capabilities, enabling the 'Entry date' filter gives you the ability to target your survey campaigns based on seniority. For example, you can define onboarding campaigns only for your newest employees!
Which classification
After looking at scientific sources, as well as Supermood data analysis and feedback from our users, we have created 7 groups:
0-1 year
1-2 years
2-5 years
5-10 years
10-15 years
15-25 years
25+ years
How we chose the breakdown for this classification
The 3 major stages
Research on employee engagement and experience agrees that there are 3 stages in an employee's career within a company:
Early career (0-2 years): this is the settling in stage, where the new employee is trying to get established in the organization and is most likely to leave.
Mid-career (2-10 years): This is the ascension, the evaluation period of one's achievements in relation to one's ambitions.
The late career (+10 years): this is the holding stage, where people will have the opportunity to move to higher positions with more responsibility or continue to make a significant contribution to the company (and plan for retirement).
We wanted to include these milestones in our categorization first and foremost - but not only... 🤓
The granularity
You will probably have noticed that the size of each category increases as it goes along: the categories span 1 year, then 3, 5, 10, and the last one has no end. There are several reasons for this.
The groups are smaller in the early years (1-3 years) because:
Many events happen in the first few years of an employee in their company (onboarding, integration, organizational socialization).
Turnover is generally higher in the first years.
There are many more employees in these seniority categories than in the higher categories. Small groups in the early years allow for a better distribution of the company's population and a more accurate analysis.
For higher categories, the markers are wider (5 years) because:
There is less disparity between people after more than 5 years in the company.
Theoretically, an acquired skill becomes obsolete on average after 5 years and a person stays on average in the same position for 5 to 7 years - so it is important to reflect these milestones.
Finally, for groups with even higher tenure, the ranges are wider (10 years and infinity for more than 25 years of tenure) because :
Disparities within these populations are generally very small.
Few people reach such high levels of seniority - broadening these groups provides a large enough population for reliable statistical analysis.
If you would like to explore the impact of seniority further, you can take a look below at the various sources that influenced our choices. Feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions!