Assimilation Score - How can this be right...?

mooks

I know I've got to try and be more objective about this, but it's obviously pretty difficult when I've so much emotion tied up in this, so forgive me if I've sounded a little pig-headed and overly adamant...

All I'm asking is whether it's reasonable and appropriate to be scored down - that is for tasks I do that this new job doesn't to count against me...?

The scoring sheet looks kind of like this:

My Job The New Job
Responsible for 10 staff - 50% - Responsible for 5 staff
Budget of £100,000 - 75% - Budget of £75,000
Strategy and Policy - 100% - Strategy and Policy
Training Staff - 100% - Training Staff
Emergency Planning - 0% - (Blank Space)
(Blank Space) - 0% - Attend evening meetings
Average 54%

(sorry about the formatting it looked much better on the draft...!)

Where there's the responsibility to attend evening meetings, as I wasn't previously attending evening meetings, I would understand why a mark of 0% would downgrade the average, but where I was previously responsible for emergency planning, why should that also bring the average down? And why should having more of a budget also bring the average down?

Please - I'm not doing this to be difficult - but genuinely because I want to understand how my doing these things in the old job should cause a detriment when they're not even part of the new role?

LittleVoice

If this were about whether you as a candidate were suitable for a post, I agree that what they have done is not sensible. If you can manage a budget of £100K, you should be able to manage one of £75K. If you can conduct business in French but this is not required, it wouldn't matter - as long as they didn't think you really wanted to work selling to the French market.

However, what they are apparently doing is comparing jobs, not looking at people in those jobs. So all elements of each job need to be compared. Sorry it works against you.

mooks

LittleVoice wrote: »

If this were about whether you as a candidate were suitable for a post, I agree that what they have done is not sensible. If you can manage a budget of £100K, you should be able to manage one of £75K. If you can conduct business in French but this is not required, it wouldn't matter - as long as they didn't think you really wanted to work selling to the French market.

However, what they are apparently doing is comparing jobs, not looking at people in those jobs. So all elements of each job need to be compared. Sorry it works against you.

I agree...!

Everything I've gone on here is based on the job description - none of it has been based on whether I think I can do the job, or whether I've got experience doing certain things. I can speak French and play the violin - not to mention make a mean chilli - but I'm not asking for those things to be considered.

The reality is that they have put down on paper that my having a responsibility for emergency planning as part of my job description is actually a reason why I shouldn't be assimilated to the new job.

If emergency planning isn't part of the new job description, why is it being considered as part of the scoring process?

mooks

Googlewhacker wrote: »

Oh I get you, they are comparing parts of the job you currently do that are not valid for the new job. If these are the same catergories for everyone then you could struggle IMO but tbh listen to SarEL or seriously go and pay for a solicitor...could be money well spent!

I think I'm going to have to - just to get some peace of mind.

I was actually the only one involved in this process, as the other job they were deleting was vacant. The trouble is my experiences over the past two years gave me the distinct impression they wanted to get rid of me. It makes me wonder whether they knew there were these discrepancies in the scoring matrix, which is why they withheld it for such a long time - only providing it when they absolutely had to for the ET.

There are so many other things that happened that are also part of the ET claim, but in the end, if I can show that their scoring was wrong and I shouldn't have been made redundant anyway, all the other things in my case are simply evidence that this wasn't just a matter of a mistake in the scoring, but a premeditated drive to get rid of me.

Thank you though - I can imagine I've been incredibly frustrating, but hope this all makes more sense now...!

mooks

I've had a read through of my earlier points, and I can see why some have posted the responses they have - in being so frantic I don't think I was as clear as I should have been.

So yes - in the end, there were items that were always part of my own job description that weren't included in the new job description. You'd imagine these would be irrelevant to the new JD, and so wouldn't be used as part of the scoring, but they were in fact counted - so we ended up with a whole list of responsibilities, many of which were ones that were actually on my JD, and because they were marked as 0% match with the new JD, they each brought the average down by several percentage points at a time.

The emergency planning one was a case in point - it was listed on my JD as a responsibility, but wasn't on the new JD - the trouble being though that this actually ended up counting against me in the averages - so everything that was listed on my JD that wasn't listed on the other JD actually ended up counting against me.

I wish I could think of a real world analogy...

What it wasn't though was me saying 'but I did all this stuff' when it didnt actually appear on my JD.

In the end though, I've taken your advice and am taking steps to see an employment lawyer just to go through the salent points of the case. At the moment I'm going stir crazy, second guessing myself and wearing holes in the carpet. It'll be great to get some sleep at some point...

mariefab

I agree that their assimilation process is daft, but i suppose that employers can use daft processes if they want to.

Does a 'How to use our Assimilation process' guide exist?
Do you have any evidence that they applied the process in a different way with other employees?

It might be better for you to focus on things like their refusal to give you the job evaluation paperwork, thus making it impossible for you to challenge any of the scores, before the redundancy.

SarEl

mariefab wrote: »

I agree that their assimilation process is daft, but i suppose that employers can use daft processes if they want to.

Does a 'How to use our Assimilation process' guide exist?
Do you have any evidence that they applied the process in a different way with other employees?

It might be better for you to focus on things like their refusal to give you the job evaluation paperwork, thus making it impossible for you to challenge any of the scores, before the redundancy.

Thank you! That was the simpler version of what I was trying to tell the OP earlier. Somehow, it didn't come out that easy! Mariefab is correct - the employer is allowed to be daft if they want to be, and obsessing about how daft they are will not help your case. A tribunal cannot say that the employer used a daft method and should have used another one - that is substituting their opinion for the employers, which they cannot do.

It's the process that matters. Have they applied this process to others in the same way; why could they not have given you the scores to use at appeal, etc. If you are going to win these are the questions that you need to focus on.

mooks

That's helpful - and I do appreciate what you're saying. I'm just glad that we're definitely clear on what the situation was - I felt I was giving the impression that I was saying they should be taking acting up and honorariam into account, which wasn't the case.

I think part of my questioning will be around the scoring, because their process isn't clear to me - it simply says "assimilation will involve matching the items on the old and new job descriptions" - and as SarEl's said, there's a possibility with that vague a statement that they can do the evaluation any way they see fit.

Believe me though, the fact they refused to provide the scoring sheets is also a main focus. I'm certainly not focussing on the scoring because the case is weak in other areas...

tara66_2

Can't comment on the detail unfortunately, and I know this is why you are posting, but I wish you well with your case x