In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee incompetent to carry out its duties.
The corollary is the darker half: given enough time, the mechanism fills every post, so work is accomplished by those who have not yet reached their level.
In practice
- A department's work is done by the two people appointed last spring, and by nobody who has held the same post for six years.
- An organisation's actual output is produced by its newest cohort in each grade, which is why a hiring freeze bites two years later than expected.