EMPLOYEE TESTS DON'T ALWAYS MAKE THE GRADE

Shaunn Herron

The Ottawa Citizen, January 25, 1997 

Higher price to pay for an impromptu test. A Hamilton-based dispatcher for the Niagara region was fired after he failed a test euphemistically known as a standardized instrument. Ministry officials told Robertson the test showed he didn't have the aptitude or traits they were looking for in a dispatcher. He was told to work his remaining shifts and finish his career. It was a high price to pay for failing a test he was never meant to take. "I was surprised to find out that I wasn't cut out to be a dispatcher," Robertson says. "I've been doing it for 20 years, then his Mickey Mouse test comes along and tells me I can't do it." The Ontario Public Service Employees Union protested Robertson's firing. He was back on the job three weeks later with an apology and back pay in hand.

It was vindication for him - and egg on the ministry's face. "It was what I consider a no-brainer case," said Larry Butters, OPSEU's top ambulance official for Niagara and Hamilton. "He should never have been put through the procedure." The grievance coupled with pressure from Bob Patrick, head of OPSEU's ambulance division, prompted the ministry to stop testing experienced dispatchers and remove results from the files of any dispatcher who had been forced to take it. New applicants without experience must still write the test. "This is a very right-wing approach to hiring - very discriminatory," said Patrick, who added that he feels the test is faulty. "We were seeing people with 10 and 15 years' service, with no blemishes on their records, being told they were incompetent." Provincial spokesmen declined to discuss Robertson's case. Managers would say only the grievance had been resolved. Graham Brand. Ontario's director of emergency health services, said the test is designed to screen untrained applicants for dispatching jobs. It identifies, among others, and do a variety of tasks at the same time.

If tha's the case, Robertson asks, why was he questioned about U.S. steel companies, American presidents and a fictional war in Antarctica? "It didn't recreate may job or what I go through," he said. "What does any of that have to do with my job?" Alex Polgar, the Hamilton consultant who provided the test to the ministry, described Robertson's claims as "nonsense." Polgar said the test is not a psychological one. He called it a "standardized instrument" designed to find qualities needed in dispatchers. Neither the province nor Polgar would provide The Hamilton Spectator with a copy of the test.

Gary Latham, an industrial psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto, said alarm bells should have gone off when longtime dispatchers performed poorly on the test. First, nobody should be fired on the basis of the results, he said. Second, veteran workers should be the ones posting the best results. "That's stupidity," said Latham. "If a person does well on the job but not on the test, it's the test that should be fired." Brand said the plan "went off the rails" when it was applied to more than 30 full-and part-time dispatchers in Niagara, Hamilton, Simcoe and Brantford. Robertson was the only worker fired.