To me, we need to preserve the institutional knowledge that comes with tenured employees. They have knowledge that isn't written down that is valuable. But it shouldn't be the ONLY consideration.

IMO it isn't hard for people to look around their office/team/job site and see who are the most valuable players. Who contributes the most to accomplishing the goals of the group. Some folks work harder, some folks take responsiblity, some folks slack off and some folks hide from responsibility.

So, if I have a handful of true champion performers, that group is retained first regardless of seniority. They are the folks who will bail the team out when the shit hits the fan. The team NEEDS them regardless of their age.

Then we get to the majority of the workers. They do their jobs. They accomplish their tasks. These are the meat and potatoes of a workforce. This group is where seniority should play a significnt decision in retention in a lay-off situation. If I have 50 in this group and can only retain 30, I would say the 20 least senior should be laid off.

Then we have the folks are still working only because it hasn't been worth the effort to let them go earlier. The dead weight. This group should laid off regardless of seniority before anyone in the other two groups gets sent home.

IMO the CHALLENGE with such a system is that ultimately you have to develop a management team you trust. Which means you need to let useless managers go before the layoff process even starts.