Can I refuse to take a company-wide abilities evaluation check?

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THE QUESTION

My firm is present process a merger. The brand new HR division simply despatched out a company-wide e-mail for us to take a abilities evaluation check. They are saying it’s getting used as a growth device for reskilling and upskilling, however my on-line searches of this check say that it’s for evaluating potential hires. That makes me assume they’re utilizing it to determine who to let go and who to maintain. May I be capturing myself within the foot by taking the check? Am I allowed to refuse the check if I wasn’t required to take any exams like this after I was first employed?

THE FIRST ANSWER

Rahul Soni, employment lawyer, Soni Regulation Agency, Toronto

You can not merely refuse to take a related office abilities evaluation check. Your employer has the fitting to evaluate its operations and make staffing adjustments to deal with enterprise wants. Provided that your organization is present process a merger, the human sources division might genuinely want to make use of numerous instruments, together with this abilities evaluation check, to know the skillset of its newly inherited staff.

You can be capturing your self within the foot by refusing to take the talents evaluation check. In accordance with Ontario’s Employment Requirements Act, your refusal could possibly be construed as “willful misconduct, disobedience or willful neglect of obligation” and grounds to terminate you with zero discover or severance.

On the similar time, your employer additionally has a authorized obligation to behave in good religion. As a part of this good religion obligation, your employer can’t mislead you or lie in regards to the true intent of requiring you to take the check. It’s possible you’ll wish to doc, in writing, that your employer has instructed you that the check is getting used for reskilling and upskilling – not deciding which staff to terminate or preserve. In the end, if you’re terminated and be taught that your employer was dishonest with you in regards to the true intent of creating you’re taking the check, you possibly can be entitled to unhealthy religion, ethical, aggravated and punitive damages – along with any discover pay entitlements.

THE SECOND ANSWER

Sarah Levine, lawyer, Taylor Janis LLP, Edmonton

Modifications in firm possession can actually deliver with them durations of uncertainty. In your case, your query appears to be one in all whether or not an worker may be required to reprove themselves to their employer. It’s also necessary to remember that you haven’t been instructed you might be being reassessed in your potential employability, however that could be a conclusion you’ve gotten drawn from your individual analysis. Slightly, the brand new human sources division has represented that it’s taking a baseline evaluation of its new work drive.

In the end, the employer is entitled to evaluate the talents of its work drive, notably in instances of change, akin to new possession. As you notice, you had by no means been beforehand examined or assessed, so all of the extra cause for the brand new possession to require a baseline evaluation of your abilities and talents with the intention to perceive what you might be able to. This could possibly be extra essential in some roles than others, as an example, technical and expert roles or safety-sensitive roles the place a brand new proprietor desires to make sure that you’re in keeping with any and all authorized necessities of your position from a legal responsibility and security perspective. Some retraining or “reskilling” could also be decided obligatory for the brand new proprietor’s operations.

In the end, you possibly can refuse to take the check, however within the absence of the baseline data the brand new firm might allow you to go with out trigger as a result of they don’t have the required details about your abilities and talents to finish the bona fide occupational necessities of your position.

Slightly than capturing your self within the foot, consider this check as a method to put your finest foot ahead to showcase the talents it’s a must to provide and to develop as an worker with the corporate.

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