Employee applied for planner position seven grades higher
When an assistant planner applied for the position of senior planner, she didn’t receive an interview and the job was awarded to another employee.
Sabrina Salatino worked at Toronto’s planning department in the committee of adjustment when in 2012, it was reorganized to cut the number of positions from application technicians, assistant planners (wage grade 11), planners and senior planners (wage grade 18) to only the two classifications of senior planner and application technicians.
Salatino was given the option of remaining in the same department or moving to the community-planning department and retaining her assistant planner title. She chose the latter.
On Aug. 12, 2012, the city posted an opening for a senior planner in community planning. Nine employees applied, including Salatino, and another person was eventually chosen to fill the role.
The successful candidate had worked as a planner since 2006 and had acted as senior planner.
Salatino was not given an interview because she failed on the initial “paper screen” when Susan Tasich from human resources and Anita MacLeod, manager of the position, conducted a “joint preliminary review of applications.”
They decided that Salatino did not meet the requirements, specifically that she didn’t have “extensive experience delivering complex planning projects with minimal direction, while balancing political, community and other stakeholder interests,” which was the first question asked.
As well, when Salatino applied for a position that was seven grades of pay higher, it was not reasonable to expect she would have qualified, said the employer.
On Sept. 13, Salatino and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Local 79, filed a grievance. (Four applicants advanced to the interview stage; three were planners, one a senior planner.)
When asked about experience, Salatino said she worked essentially as a senior planner, because both worked on the same files.
But MacLeod testified that the assistant planner’s main role was to assist planners and senior planners and it was not the same job. Senior planners were responsible for high-level work and managing other planners, neither of which Salatino had any experience with.
Arbitrator Laura Trachuk dismissed the grievance, saying Salatino could have included more information in the application.
“Thus, if (Salatino) wanted to rely upon experience she had attained by doing work normally done by senior planners, it was necessary to describe that work in her application. The posting states: ‘Applicants are required to demonstrate in their applications/resumés that their qualifications match those specified in the job posting.’ Simply paraphrasing the qualifications set out in the job posting in the covering letter is insufficient to inform those reviewing the application that one has experience beyond what would be expected from the positions listed in their resumé,” said Trachuk.
Salatino’s lack of experience was crucial to why she was not considered past the “paper screen,” said Trachuk.
“(Salatino’s) application did not describe: ‘Extensive experience delivering complex planning projects with minimal direction, while balancing political, community and other stakeholder interests’ because she did not have that experience at that time,” said Trachuk.
“The union has not met the onus of demonstrating that the employer’s determination that (Salatino) did not have the required qualifications for the senior planner position was not fair and objective” said Trachuk.
Reference: Toronto (City) and Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 79. Laura Trachuk — arbitrator. Amandi Esonwanne for the employer. Douglas Wray for the employee. Oct. 24, 2017.
