You make the call
This instalment of You Make the Call features an unsuccessful job candidate who claimed discrimination based on a physical disability.
The worker was a legally blind woman who worked several jobs that involved telephone work — emergency dispatcher, order taker for an assistive technology company, call centre agent for two pizza companies, sales representative for Ticketmaster and online registration trainer, as well as data entry. Often, she used assistive technology for computer and telephone work.
In April 2016, the worker applied for the position of inbound centre sales representative (ISR) with Nationwide Home Services Corp., an Edmonton-based company providing carpet and furnace cleaning. The job advertisement didn’t require experience in customer service, sales or call centres, but the worker felt the experience she had translated well to the ISR position.
Nationwide conducted a preliminary telephone interview and scheduled her for an in-person interview at its office on May 10. The worker arrived with her service dog and the interview proceeded. The interviewer asked the worker how she would get to work and the worker responded that she lived nearby and she had walked to the office. As a result, she said that transportation and shift work wouldn’t be a problem.
The worker raised the subject of assistive technology and the interviewer responded that she wasn’t familiar with it and asked if it would slow the worker down. The worker thought that the question was inappropriate but answered that she could be very fast with the technology — faster than most of the other ISRs, she claimed.
At the end of the interview, the interviewer said that only successful candidates would be contacted — as per company policy for recruiting — for a second interview and this would happen within one week.
The worker felt that the interview went well, but she didn’t hear back within a week.
On May 18, she called Nationwide’s call centre and asked to speak with the interviewer, but she wasn’t available. She called again and left a message, but the call wasn’t returned. She contacted the call centre a third time and was told by an ISR that the position had been filled.
However, following this call, the worker noticed that the job was posted again online. She applied again, noting that she had acquired experience with the type of computers used by Nationwide, but on May 26 the interviewer called to say that she wasn’t a fit for the position based on her previous work experience.
The worker saw the ISR position advertised on two more occasions over the next month. She then filed a human rights complaint, alleging that she was asked inappropriate questions during the interview that addressed her blindness and that she was discriminated against in employment on the ground of physical disability.
Nationwide denied there was any discrimination. It claimed that job advertisements for ISRs run continuously due to turnover and all candidates were asked about how they got to work, as reliable transportation was necessary due to the fact that the business operated six to seven days per week from early morning to late evening and public transportation was limited outside of peak hours. The company also said that the interviewer didn’t mention any candidate with a disability to anyone else and it was policy not to contact candidates it didn’t deem as a fit after the first interview.
The company added that the first interview was designed to get a subjective feel for the candidate’s fit and the interviewer felt that the worker was negative about past employers and co-workers, which made her not a right fit for Nationwide.
You Make the Call
Was the worker discriminated against?
OR
Was the decision not to hire the worker non-discriminatory?
IF YOU SAID there was no discrimination, you’re right. The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal found that the question about how the worker would get to work wasn’t related to her disability. The evidence showed that reliable transportation was a legitimate concern because of the hours ISRs could work and the lack of public transportation outside of peak hours.
The tribunal also found that it was the worker who raised the subject of assistive technology and the interviewer’s response that she was unfamiliar with it was genuine. Either way, there was no evidence that speed was a necessity for ISRs or that assistive technology was a factor in the decision not to grant a second interview.
In addition, Nationwide provided a non-discriminatory reason for not considering the worker’s candidacy past the first interview — the worker’s attitude toward past employers and the interviewer’s feelings that she wasn’t a good fit. This was the standard procedure for all first interviews, as was the practice of not contacting unsuccessful candidates, said the tribunal.
The tribunal added that the worker felt she was a good fit because of her work experience and computer skills, but these weren’t required in the job advertisement and not key considerations in the decision on whether to hire her.
For more information, see:
- Lang v. Nation-Wide Home Services Corp., 2020 AHRC 34 (Alta. Human Rights Trib.).
