Право/
4.Трудовое право, и право социального обеспечения
A.V.
Neverova, D.C. Bagents
South-Russia
State University Of Economics and Service
The use of psychological testing in labour relations
The question
whether to apply psychological tests for candidates for a vacant position has
been discussed for a long time and it is still a personal choice of a director
and not a legal procedure. Anyway a candidate will have to agree on testing.
And here is a question of psychological testing necessity, its legality and the
correct data it can give to an employer. In this article we will try to answer
these and many other questions.
It is necessary to
define the term «test». According to the psychological test definition test is
the method of psycho diagnostics that uses standardized questions and problems
and has a certain rating scale. Tests are
often applied at career guidances, vocational
training, employment, the advisory and psychotherapeutic help, psychological
consultation in the companies and many other fields. Test allows defining an
actual level of development of a person, necessary knowledge, personal
characteristics and skills.
The procedure of
employment of the candidate, as a rule, consists of one or several interviews.
But short conversation with the person does not give some full and authentic
knowledge about the candidate. The first impression can be deceptive. Besides
he/she can have a headache, can be disturbed by urgent problems or just have
bad mood at the moment. Or you just don’t like each other. A candidate can even
look and sound a pleasant interlocutor and his/her personal
data can meet formal requirements to
vacancy but who knows whether he/she will work successfully, achieve real
results, how quickly he/she will learn new things and react in difficult
situations? No interviews can give the comprehensive answer to an employer
about moral-ethic or professional-business qualities of a candidate.
Interpretation of
tests is another problem, especially if it is done by an employer (basically at
the intuitive level). Only the skilled psychologist can process data and judge
about psycho neurological qualities of a potential employee for the following
reasons:
1) standard printed
copies contain terminology that is not clear for nonprofessionals.
2) they are contradictory, and only the expert knowing
theoretical model on which the test is based can interpret these
contradictions.
3) if actions are
carried out by the psychologist he/she will avoid random answers and abstraction.
During the
interview, as a rule, it is not accepted to ask the record from a psycho
neurological clinic. Therefore one more important function of testing is to
detect mentally sick candidates. Many employers face this problem. It is
difficult enough to distinguish such person during the first interview. It can
become much more difficult to dismiss him/her. But he/she can easily fail the job and
even disorganize the whole staff. Therefore many organizations use expensive
and time taking application tests just to be on the safe side.
The development of
psychological consultation practice in the commercial organizations opens a
wide field to an employer for test application. During the consultation an
expert touches upon almost all aspects of human life. People often address to
tests to know more about themselves and sometimes to change themselves. It
generates a special class of test techniques: from popular, quite often not
serious questionnaires to freely structured projective methods exploring the
depths of human mentality.
In labour relations,
first of all, we have both common and different interests of two persons - an
employer and an employee.
An employer needs
employee’s knowledge and skills to reach his/her aims. A boss demands from an
employee such work that will increase profitability of the company etc.
Accordingly, the community of interests of an employer and the employee helps
to achieve common aim. And as a result it entails prosperity for both of them.
Summarizing all the
researches on this problem we came to conclusion that the process of primary
informing of an employer is limited to article 65 Labour Code of the Russian
Federation and the employer has no right to check the reliability of the data
presented to him/her due to article 22 Labour Code of the Russian Federation.
And in the course of work an employer has no right to interfere in his/her
private life, to search for the information about him/her and check it.
Besides an employer
abuses provisions of the article 65 Labour Code of the Russian Federation and
goes far beyond their limits demanding candidate’s consent to processing of
his/her personal data and carrying out validity check.
Potential candidate
often tries to hide information about him/her or to give false data in order to
get a vacant position. The way to learn more about a candidate can be:
summarizing the results of testing, the results of the interview and the
results of polygraph testing. According to the
Russian legislation the results of psychological testing cannot be the reason
for dismissal or refusal.
Any information
that is not listed in the articles 65, 88 Labour Code of the Russian Federation
concerning the private life of an employee for example about his family,
health, about his/her location and off activities etc. falls under protection
according to the articles 23 and 24 of the Constitution of the Russian
Federation. The liability for constitutional infringement of the guaranteed
rights is provided in the article 80 Labour Code of the Russian Federation
(possibility of an employee to terminate the labour contract in time specified
by him/her in the statement) and the article 90 Labour Code of the Russian
Federation (administrative responsibility in the form of the fine up to 10
thousand rubles.); and the article 13.11 of the Administrative Code, item 137
Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the criminal liability in the form of
arrest for the term up to six months); the articles 150 and 151 Civil Code of
the Russian Federation (compensation of the moral damage to an employee).
Taking into consideration
all the information we come to conclusion that the legislator has not provided
and even has not mentioned psychological testing in the articles of Labour
Code. In this article we have
considered the labour relatios of an employee and an employer and tried to
reveal their objective legal status. I believe it is necessary that the
legislator should make amendments in the Labour Code of the Russian Federation
and include provisions concerning psychological testing.
The bibliography
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2. А. Климов «Психология профессионала», Москва-Воронеж, 2001г.
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