Health worker loses appeal after 'scathing' attack on 'arrogant' colleague
A public servant has launched an unprecedented personal attack on a colleague in a workplace tribunal.
A state public servant has made a “scathing” and unprecedented personal attack on an “arrogant” colleague in a workplace tribunal after she lost a promotion, claiming her rival lacks integrity, slacks off and got the job because she dropped “buzzwords” in the interview.
Catriona Stevenson, who works as a nuclear medicine technologist, classified as HP3 but is currently backfilling a HP4 position, at Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service (SCUH), also questioned the legitimacy of the entire process and claimed the interview panel “conspired” to appoint a candidate who wasn’t the most suitable.
She also claimed she didn’t get the plum role because public service interviews are a “systemic barrier” to neurodivergent people.
Queensland Health submitted to the tribunal that Ms Stevenson had “self-identified recently” as neurodivergent, but was “not formally diagnosed”, and did not disclose her neurodivergence until after the hiring process was complete.
Details of her claims were made in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission when Ms Stevenson filed an appeal arguing the Queensland Health decision was not fair and reasonable.
She claimed the three-member interview panel somehow conspired to appoint someone other than the most meritorious or suitable candidate, and “may have” been given “an unfair advantage” by receiving inside information about the recruitment process.
Ms Stevenson failed to get a promotion to senior nuclear medicine technologist (HP4) on a permanent part-time basis.
A full-time HP4 can earn between $128,000 to $138,000, according to government pay rates published last year.
Ms Stevenson told the QIRC that the woman who got the promotion to the senior role on September 10 “was more arrogant and talked themselves up more than the person with 20 years of experience, they got the role” and could not have been the most meritorious or suitable for the role.
“This makes a farce of the entire hiring process,” Ms Stevenson submitted.
Ms Stevenson also submitted that after her colleague got the promotion, her character did “not reflect SCUH values (particularly integrity)”, according to the appeal notice filed with the QIRC on October 13.
“Since the interview, the successful applicant has stopped pulling their weight in the clinical work of the department and goes for more/longer breaks than she is entitled to. She often takes her lunch breaks at inconvenient times, forcing her colleagues to cover her share of the work. This is all known by management,” Ms Stevenson wrote in her appeal notice filed in the QIRC.
Ms Stevenson also made the “very serious allegation” in the QIRC that the successful candidate was told ahead of the August 19 interview how many interviews there would be, and that all would be internal applicants and she speculated she “may have been given ...other information which may have given her an unfair advantage in the recruitment process”.
She alleged this “casts a shade over the legitimacy of the entire process”.
She made this claim of the applicant being given “other information” without any supporting evidence, Ms Pidgeon wrote.
She also claimed the unnamed woman had “only 3.5yrs” in the job, and beat out rivals with up to 20 years experience.
Ms Stevenson submitted she was “disgusted by” Queensland Health’s “insinuation” that she only took her appeal to the QIRC because she was “disappointed” she did not get the promotion.
Ms Stevenson claimed she appealed because the process was “grossly deficient and gave the position to a candidate who was not the best fit, due to a lack of experience, and lack of SCUH values”.
But in her decision handed down on November 28, Industrial Commissioner Samantha Pidgeon dismissed Ms Stevenson’s criticisms of her colleague.
“Ms Stevenson’s submissions ....(included) pointed and personal allegations about the capacity and personal conduct of the successful candidate,” Ms Pidgeon wrote.
“These matters are not relevant to the question of whether the promotion decision was fair and reasonable,” she wrote.
“Ms Stevenson is scathing in her assessment of the successful candidate. I have rarely read submissions in a public sector promotion appeal that attack the work ethic and values of the successful candidate,” Ms Pidgeon wrote.
“Ms Stevenson does not sound disappointed about the outcome of the process; she seems highly aggrieved that a particular candidate was successful,” she wrote.
Queensland Health submitted Ms Stevenson should lodge a workplace grievance if she is personally aggrieved by the successful candidate’s actions.
“I do not accept that an (interview) panel of three people, including an external panel member, where there are no personal relationships between panel members and candidates has somehow conspired to appoint someone other than the most meritorious or suitable candidate to the role. Ms Stevenson has provided no evidence to support such a claim,” Ms Pidgeon stated in her decision.
“Ms Stevenson may find it bizarre that a person with less experience than either herself, or an employee with 20-years of experience was successful in applying for the role. However, public sector appointments are made on merit and suitability rather than time served,” Ms Pidgeon stated in her decision.
Queensland Health submitted that Ms Stevenson did not disclose her neurodivergence until after the hiring process was complete and the decision had been made and did not request any adjustments or supports during the recruitment process due to this condition.
They submitted that her claims that the job process was discriminatory because questions were verbal and multi-part, or because clarifications were limited, were baseless.
They told the tribunal that Ms Stevenson was obliged to tell the recruiting panel she needed support or adjustments for her neurodivergence.
Queensland Health told the QIRC that Stevenson was not the most meritorious or suitable candidate after the recruitment process.
There were ten applications, and four candidates were short-listed.
“I cannot identify any anomaly in the composition of the panel or the recruitment process which was undertaken,” Ms Pidgeon concluded.
“I do not find that the process was grossly deficient or deficient at all. I find that the process complied with the relevant directive, legislation and policy,” Ms Pidgeon wrote.
