Employee

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Senior Administrative Assistant

A University

Representatives

Shonagh Byrne, SIPTU

Peter Flood, IBEC

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Dispute seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

30/03/2021

The employee commenced working in the university in 2008 and has been in a role in the school where he is currently employed since 2009.  In 2016, he was promoted to the role of senior executive assistant (SEA).  In October 2020, the employee’s director applied to have his job re-graded to the administrative officer grade.  In November, the job-sizing committed rejected the application and the employee remains at the grade of SEA.  He seeks a recommendation that the job-sizing committee re-considers its decision not to re-grade his role.

On behalf of the employee, Ms Byrne submitted a comprehensive submission in advance of the hearing.  She outlined the background to the request to have the employee’s job evaluated.  She said that his role has expanded over the years and that he has taken on managerial duties such as the training of assistant professors in relation to assessment policies and being the chief invigilator for 99% of exams in the school.  He often starts exams in the absence of the assistant professor and he advises the clinical skills lab tutor with regard to e-procurement procedures and how to avail of funding.  He also advises occasional lecturers.  Ms Byrne said that these duties are all above the employee’s current grade of SEA.

A copy of the job-sizing application form was submitted at the hearing for me to review.  The employee argues that the application form does not reflect all the additional workload that he has taken on, for example:

§    From 2014 until pre-Covid, the employee managed the final year hospital rotation assessment submissions. 

§    Since 2017, he has trained assistant professors on exam policies and procedures.

§    Also since 2017, he has set up all new laptops, downloading relevant packages for assistant professors.

§    From 2010 until 2013, he did 99% of the hospital tours for North American students.  In 2014, he trained a new colleague to do the tours, but he continued to do them until 2019.

§    In 2020, he created training for focus group administration.

§    From 2019, until pre-Covid, the employee managed the entire final year practical examination without supervision.

§    On behalf of the director of his school and the head of the section, he prepared the annual report.

§    In 2019, he qualified as a driver for the university’s cars so that he could drive a delegation to to a placement provider.

§    Until 2014, he managed the phone calls to 45 stage 3 placement providers across Ireland and Northern Ireland.  This is now done by the placement provider or by an assistant professor.

§    From 2010 until pre-Covid, the employee managed the grade assessment sheets.  This is an academic grading task and is the base for a student passing their clinical placement module.

§    Since 2011, he has provided support to career counsellors, parents and students regarding entry enquiries, alternative entry routes or programme-related queries.

§    From 2011 until January 2022, the employee managed the day-to-day aspects of the course programme.  This work has been assigned to a programme manager.

§    He contributed to the planning, development and implementation of the course programme.

§    From the perspective of compliance and standards, the employee supported and contributed to the placement working group, the stage co-ordinator group and the group associated with the subject-matter of the school where he works.

§    He worked closely with all the relevant stakeholders; stage co-ordinators, module co-ordinators, occasional lecturers, the programme office, international vendors, external examiners, hospital-based staff, hospital operations managers, the clinical lab tutor, technical staff and the director of the school as well as the catering, facilities and room allocations teams.

§    He co-ordinates pastoral support for students.

§    He has established excellent working relationships and good communications with a wide network of internal and external stakeholders.

§    He has taken on projects that are beyond his role and he has carried out his job in a manner that supports and is aligned with the university’s values with regard to collegiality, diversity, engagement, excellence and integrity.

§    Since he submitted this grievance to the WRC, the employee has taken on the additional role of placement officer and he also provided support with time-tabling in 2021.

The points I have summarised above are a very brief outline of the details contained in the union’s submission at the hearing.  It is the employee’s case that his role has developed significantly over time, and he has taken on the duties that reflect the core competencies of the grade of administrative officer. 

In her submission, Ms Byrne provided four job descriptions of higher administrative officers which, the complainant claims, show that his role covers many of the areas undertaken by these roles.  A list of the training that the employee has completed was also provided.  Finally, to support his argument that his job should be re-graded, he provided extracts from his most recent performance review.  These extracts show that his director is very positively disposed towards him and that she fully recognises the contribution he has made to the school.  She also indicated her commitment to have his job re-graded and said that she would work with the employee on this objective.

The job-sizing committee met in November 2020 and the employee’s job was awarded 867 marks.  The employee believes that the job-sizing application form which was submitted for his role does not fully encapsulate its complexity and development.  The mark required for re-grading to the role of administrative officer is 901.  His own assessment results in a score of 987.

In his submission on behalf of the employer, Mr Flood set out the background to the establishment of a Job-sizing Framework for Professional and Administrative Roles in the university.  This provides that the roles of professional staff from executive assistant to administrative officer grades may be assessed and potentially re-graded.  To go through the job-sizing process, a role must be proposed as having been materially changed in scope and size.  If the role is re-graded by the job-sizing committee, the job-holder does not have to apply for the re-graded role through an open competition.  The process has been approved by the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.  To be in scope for re-grading, a job must not have been re-graded in the previous four years and the job-holder must have been in the role for at least four years and assessed as performing well.

In 2020, the employee was in the role of senor executive assistant for four years and his job was considered by the director of the school to have materially changed.  The director supported the proposal to have the employee’s job re-sized and she worked with him to complete the application details.  The job-sizing committee is comprised of the head of the relevant school, a union representative and a senior member of the HR department.  Six criteria are used to evaluate a job:

1.              Work complexity – the level of difficulty involved in the performance of the tasks associated with a job;

2.              Decision-making – the necessity to take independent action;

3.              Relationships – interactions inside and outside the university;

4.              Capability – the ability of the job-holder to carry out the demands of the role;

5.              Impact – in areas such as finance, customer service, stakeholder relations, legal and compliance, human resources, health and safety, environmental and brand and reputation;

6.              Supervision – responsibility for other people’s work.

Each of the above criteria is weighted and, depending on the job, some are considered more relevant than others.  Each criterion is sub-divided into five levels and the score for each criterion depends on the degree to which it is associated with a specific job.  Each grade is positioned within a range of points.  The grade of administrative officer level 2 (AO2) is the next grade up from the employee’s job of SEA.  The AO2 role is positioned between 901 and 1050 points.  Having carried out the job-sizing exercise on the application submitted by the employee and his director, the committee gave his job a score of 867.  The application did not therefore meet the threshold for re-grading to the level of AO2.  There is no appeal from the committee’s decision. 

Mr Flood’s submission summarised the university’s position regarding the employee’s grievance about the outcome of the grading process:

§    The job evaluation scheme is agreed with SIPTU and the union has a representative on the grading committee.

§    The union representative agreed with the evaluation of the employee role.

§    The committee members are trained in the evaluation process and they acted in accordance with the agreed framework.  The agreed methodology was used to evaluate the employee’s role.

§    No evidence has been presented to show that the committee failed to have regard to the complexity of the employee’s role.

§    Given the fact that the union has a member on the committee, there is no mechanism to appeal the outcome of an evaluation exercise.

From the information presented at the hearing of this dispute, I understand that the process of job-sizing focuses on the job, and not on the personal attributes of the person doing the job.  It certainly can be said that a job-holder contributes to the standard at which a job is carried out, and the manner in which a role expands and is done well may sometimes contribute to that job being re-graded.  It’s also the case however, that each job is comprised of a set of tasks at varying levels of complexity, responsibility and impact and it is important not to assume that the carrying out of a job to a high standard, puts the job at a higher grade.

At the hearing of this dispute, the employee explained why he felt that the job-sizing committee did not take account of all the components of his job, as submitted in the application process.  At first, he indicated that he had not seen the final document provided to the committee to conduct an evaluation of his role.  However, when I explored this further at the hearing, I was satisfied that he and his manager collaborated to put together an agreed document that clearly described his tasks and responsibilities, the importance of his role in the school and its interaction with internal and external stakeholders.  I have examined this document carefully and it is apparent that it was compiled with consideration for the nature of the job under each of the six headings of complexity, decision-making, relationships, capability, impact and supervision.  I note that there is a detailed narrative under each heading that describes how the role has grown and developed.  This narrative must have been submitted by the employee with the support of his director.  It is apparent that the director values the employee’s contribution to the school and that she fully supports his case that his job should be at a higher grade.

When I examined the re-sizing application document, I am satisfied that it reflects the employee’s current role and all the responsibilities now associated with his job – taking into account that jobs are subject to change and some tasks fall away while other responsibilities are added.  The purpose of the job evaluation document is not to reflect the employee’s performance over the years, and the way he extends himself to support his colleagues and the students.  The evaluation process is focussed on the six measured criteria, with little account taken of the effort and commitment of the job-holder.  Rather, this is the function of the performance review process, “Performance for Growth,” and it is through this process that an employee receives feedback about their performance and identifies potential for promotion.  In summary, the carrying out of a job to a very high standard is generally more likely to place the job-holder in line for promotion, than it is to enhance the grade of the job.

While not scientific in the strictest sense, the job-sizing committee attributes a score to each aspect of a job, and this results in an overall score – in the case of the employee’s job, a score of 867.  With this, his job was 34 points short of the 901 required to place it at the next level, that of AO2.  While this may be a frustrating outcome, the committee is required to carry out the evaluation exercise with detachment and transparency and, with a union member as one of the three participants on the committee, I am satisfied that this is achieved.

From the extracts from the employee’s performance review documents provided to me at the hearing, it is apparent that he is a committed administrator and that his work is well-aligned with the university’s values of integrity, engagement, excellence and diversity.  The evaluation of his job as an SEA does not detract from his performance, which is well-regarded by his manager.  The re-grading exercise is necessarily impersonal and having considered carefully the information provided to me for the purpose of this enquiry, it is my view that it would be disruptive and unwise to interfere with the outcome of that process.