Professional assessment: what are the prohibited criteria?

In that case, the interview sheets of the company concerned included, inter alia, a section on ‘assessment of group behavioral skills’, with the words ‘behavioral skills’, ‘ambition’, ‘perseverance’, ‘optimism’. The company also assessed “honesty” or “common sense.”

The trial judges ruled that the device was unlawful and prohibited the employer from using it.

What criteria should an individual interview be based on?

Public Service replies:

For the employer, the employee's assessment may include elements of his or her personality that make it possible to assess his or her ability to adapt, his or her ability to integrate into a team and to lead it, as well as his or her potential for development. The employer also considers that the terms mentioned appear only in the section dedicated to “group behavioral skills” and therefore do not affect the entire system.

For the Court of Appeal, this part of the scheme cannot be considered as ancillary or secondary as it is not possible to know how much it is taken into account in the assessment. Moreover, the abundance of behavioral criteria and sub-criteria “raises questions as to the guarantee of a sufficiently objective and impartial evaluation system”.

The Court of Appeal held that the terms used had a moralizing connotation and reflected on the personal sphere. They appear to be “too vague and imprecise to establish a direct, sufficient and necessary link with the activity of employees with a view to assessing their skills at work”.

The court found the proceedings of this employer to be unlawful.

The Court of Cassation approved the decision. Individual interviews conducted by an employer with its employees must be rested on “precise, objective and relevant criteria”, not on moral qualities. It adds that it is also impossible ‘to know to what extent exactly’ those criteria relate to ‘purely technical assessment criteria’.