HomeMy WebLinkAbout1988-0191.McCaig.89-01-27 ONTARIO EMPLOY[;"S DE LA COURONNE
CROWN EMPL OYEES DEL'ONTARiO
GRIEVANCE C,OMMISSION DE
SETTLEMENT REGLEMENT
BOARD - DES GRIEFS
~80 DUNDAS STREET WEST. TORONTO, ONTARIO. MSG ~Z8- SUITE 2100 TELEPHONE/TELePHONE
180, RUE DUNDAS OUEST, TORONTO, (ONTARIO) MSG lZS. BUREAU2100 (41~) 598.06~
O~ 91/88
IN THE ~TTER OF AN ARBITRATION
under
THE CROWN EWLOYEES COLLECTIVE B~INING ACT
before
THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD
Bergen:
OPSEU (Iq. lqcCaig)
Grievor
and
The Crown in Right of Ontario
(Ministry of the Solicitor General)
Emp I oyer'
Before: B. Fisher Vice-Chairperson
F.D. Collom Member
M.F. O'Toole Member
For the Grievor: N. Wilson
Counsel
Gowling & Henderson
Barristers and Solicitors
For the Employer: S.A. Currie
staff Relations Officer
mm~ Human Resources Secretariat .....
Hearing: August 26, 1988
DECISION
This is a competition case. The job in question was that of a Building
caretaker at the O.P.P. Detachment in Thessalon. The inc,_~mbent, Mr. Doi, was
present throughout the proceeding and partidpated in tile proceedings.
At the time of the competition the incumbent was working in the position in
question, however as part of the unclassified staff and therefore he had no seniority.'
The grievor's seniority with the governnaent was from June, 1974.
The job specification for the position in question is attached as an appendix to
decision. It can be seen from reviewing this job specification that the bulk of the
this
tasks are of a janitorial nature and therefore, stress manual skills. However, category 3
of the job specification shows that something less than 10% of the duties involve certain
skills with respect to the ability to do emergency repairs, some electrical repairs and
carpentry work.
The incumbent had been performing the job for about 17 months prior to the
competition asan unclassified employee. The grievor was employed with the Ministry of
Transportation and Communications as a Senior Construction Surveyor Inspector.
The grievor alleges the following two defects in the selection process.
Failure to Look at the Personnel File
It was admitted by the selection committee that they did not lo°k at the
personnel file of the grievor notwithstanding numerous Grievance Settlement Board cases
indicating that the selection committee is obliged to do so. The Union, however, did
not bring any evidence fonvarfl as to what would be found in the grievor's pers0nne~ file
if it had been re41ewed and therefore, it is difficult to assess what difference, if any,
this defect made in the actual selection process. It should be pointed out that full
references were taken from all the people put forward by b~th the grievor and the
incumbent so the selection committee likely obtained the information that they would
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have obtained by looking at the personnel file. However, it should be noted for the
record that thi~ is a defect in the select/on procedure.
Inappropriate Questions
This really is the important aspect of this case. As stated above, the essence
of this job involves manutals skills. The ability to communicate effectively plays a
minimal role in the day to day duties of the position. The selection committee based
their decision on the interview scores, the information ia the application form and the
reference check. On its face, it would appear that the process was correct, however,
the flaw alleged by the Un/on is the imappmpriateness of some of the questions. The
inappropriate nature of the questions relates to the fact that the question asked how the
candidate would carry out a manual operation and scored the candidate on his verbal
response rather than on his actual proven ability to perform the task, therefore, over
emphasizing the ability of the candidate to talk about rather than do the tasks.
For example, question #2 is as follows, "Outline briefly the procedure you
would follow to clean a washroom,n The correct answer lists a number of items that
would be involved in denning a washroom and the candidate would receive one point for
everything he mentioned. A question of this nature tends to examine either the
candidate's memory or his ability to verbalize manual tasks rather than testing whether
or not the candidate knows how to perform the task. One would have thought that if
you want to find out how well someone can clean a washroom you set up a test in which
the candidate is provided with a sample washroom, sample cleaning supplies, etc. and is
told to dean it. Then an observation could be made of the technique that he follows
as well as the effectiveness. It is one thing to say, nl would dean a toilet" on an
interview, it is another thing to see how the candidate cleans a toilet to see if he does
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a good job. The verbalization of mechanical tasks is not, in this Board's opinion, an
appropriate way to assess a candidate's skill ami ability for a job of this nature.
For example, it is a common practice, at least for the adult male members of .....
the population, to put on a necktie. For anyone who has done it for a long time it
becomes mechanical, therefore, requiring very little thinking. However, if you asked
someone how to put on a fie and made them verbali~,e' the procedure, I doubt whether
most people could give an effective explanation of the procedure without moving their
hands or giving a demonstration. If for some unusual reason someone could verbalize it,
it would be inappropriate to say that person knew how to fie a fie whereas the person
· Who had difficulty verbalizing did not know how to do up a fie. This can be best
illustrated by looking at another question asked of the candidates which read as follows,
"Describe how to change a florescent fight and dispose of the tube." The gtievor gave
an answer which consisted of an explanation of how to take the old florescent light out ~'
of the bulb, how to dispose of the bulb a~d a few other matters but he forgot to
mention that you put the new lightbulb in place and for that "error" he obtained a poor.
score. From this, the interviewers presumably assumed that ff asked to perform the
task of changing the lightbulb the grievor would take out the old lightbulb, throw it out
and forget to put in the new lightbulb. Needless to say, that is patently absurd as one
finds it hard to imagine that anyone could forget to put in a lighthulb when that is the
point of the job. Surely, the better way of testing of whether or not someone knoWs
how to change a lightbulb is to hand them a lightbulb and tell them to do it and observe
how he does it.. Again, when you are testing a manual skill involving dexterity and' ...
similar skills, it makes more sense to observe the person rather than have them relate
how they would do it.
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To use a somewhat stretched example, if I were hiring someone to paint the
roof of the Sistine Chapel, I would much prefer to see examples of that painter's
previous work or give him a test square to paint than to ask him how he would apply
his brush to the ceiling. This case ~ustrates, in the Board's opinion, the unfortunate
slavish reliance on interviews and oral interview questions which this and other
Ministries seem to have adopted as au alternative to more common sense and a practical
approach of simply having the employee perform the task in question. This is not to
say that every task capable of performance must be done in a demonstration' manner but
certainly where it is reasonable to test in this manner and where failure to test a skill
of. this nature through demonstration could result in great Prejudice to the candidate who
- is not as adept at verbal communication, it is a defect for the selection panel to proceed
in the manner that they did ia this competition.
Another example of the absurdity of testing manual skills through oral
questions can be found in question #8 which is as follows, "What would you do if a pipe
burst?" The grievor answered that he would turn the water off, ~ the pipe and call
outside help if necessary. He was criticized and rated accordingly because he forgot
to say that he would mop up the water on the floor. Again, it is absurd to think that
if someone was actually performing the job he would fix the pipe then step over six
inches of water and leave it there. It may well be impractical to manually test a
candidate'S ability to f~. a burst pipe but it would not be beyond the realm of
comprehension to have the candidate manually illustrate his plumbing ability in some sort
-- of demonstration.
As has been stated in previous.cases it is not enough for the Union to show
that there were procedural defects in the process for they must also show that assuming
these defects did not exist, on the balance of probabilities the grievor is relatively equal
or at least; would be found to be relatively equal ff a proper re-nm were ordered. The
original interview scores were out of 115 in which the incumbent scored 109 and the
grievor scored 88. Even ff we eliminate all the.possibly suspect questions, being #2, ~4,
#8 and #10, we still find that the gfievor scored 64 and the ino~rnbent 74 creating a
percentage differential of approximately 13.5%.
Moreover, there appears to be an important difference in the quality of the
references received by the selection committee on the two individuals. The references
for Mr. Do/are exceptional and it is hard to imagine that anyone could get a better set
of references than Mr. Doi had. The references, however, with respect to Mr. McCaig
are not nearly as helpful. One must remember that these references were only _ .
conducted w/th respect to names put forward by the candidates themselves. There are
two comments in two references which comment negatively in some manner regarding the
grievor's ability to work independently. Exhibit #21 contains the following comment, ,,
Althou~. Mark hasn't worked directly under my
su .p~v, f,~n I ~,. e discussed his wo.~ hal?.i~ arid . '..aflti~'
~. n his immediate mpqrvisors aha t.~. nave all indicatea
#tat although Mark ign't a leader in hi~ present p~__ ' n,
he ~. a good worker with a group and gets along well ~
with other fellow employees.
Exhibit #22 contains the following statement,
He [McCaig] works .~lli~gly but doesn't take the '.mt. '~.'ative
to do beyorfd his duties. Th~ is contradictory bu~ if the
job is something he re_.~, likes doing he wi. lC if it s
something he d-oesn't ~ he takes a little longer to do it. '
There was uneontracted evidence from the employer that this job involved a
lot of independent thinking there was no direct supervisor, the employee was responsible
for setting his own schedules and determining the work to be done. It is preferably a
job for someone who works very well independently and has a lot of initiative. The
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negative comments referred to above in McCaig's references would seem to show that
these were not his strong points.
Therefore, thi~ Board finds that on the balance of probabilities, although there
were defects in the selection process, the Union has failed to show that even if these
defects were corrected, a new selection committee would find that the grievor was
relatively equal to the incumbent. Therefore, the grievance is dismissed.
Dated at Toronto, this 27th day of January, 1989.
Chairperson
lnttnactlonl for completing tQrm
ADDENDUM
Although I concur in the disposition of the grievance, I must dissent from
the finding made by my colleagues regarding the inappropriateness''~ of
interview question #2.
That question was scrutinized according to the following general principle:
that where ability to perform a manual task can be demonstrated and such a
demonstration is not impractical in an interview context, it is preferable to
require a candidate to demonstrate his ability rather thin to verbalize it,
particularly where the candidates are not equally adept at verbal communicat-
ion. (As an aside I point out that there was nothing in the evidence to
indicate that the grievor was not as adept in verbal communication as 14r.
Doll.
I do not dispute the correctness of the above principle, only its application
to question #2 which concerned the procedure for cleaning a washroom. Unlike
tieing a necktie or .changing a lightbuIb, which are relatively~fast
procedures, the thorough cleaning of a washroom is a relatively slow
procedure. It is~ largely self-evident that it is not impractical in an
interview context to have a demonstration of the tieing of a necktie or the
changing of a lightbulb since these tasks require few resources and are of
short duration. It is not self-evident that a much more involved task like
cleaning a washroom is practical to demonstrate in an interview context,
particularly as here, where there was no evidence as to the physical
resources or the time available to the interview panel to conduct such a
demonstration.
Having regard to the foregoing, I would have refrained from a finding of
inappropriateness respecting question #2.
lq.F. O'Toole - Member