Monday 2 November 2015

Lies, damned lies, and workplace statistics

There have been recent comment on blogs such as IPKat concerning complaints made to ILOAT [the Administrative Tribunal the International Labour Organization]. 

These comments appear to indicate the EPO as being unusual in the number of complaints received. Reference is made by IPKat to an ILOAT document that contains interesting statistics, but not necessarily useful statistics.


ILOAT has an interesting  case law database.

Looking on the ILOAT database to the organisations with over 100 decisions against them [not necessarily representative of all organisations but a good proxy], and looking at the proportion where the phrase "case is dismissed" appears in the judgement, the following ranking is found:-


Decisions
Complaint dismissed
% dismissed
UNIDO
105
99
94.3%
ILO
324
293
90.4%
EPO
725
645
89.0%
FAO
323
287
88.9%
ITU
155
136
87.7%
Eurocontrol
234
205
87.6%
WHO
446
380
85.2%
IAEA
105
89
84.8%
PAHO
109
92
84.4%
UNESCO
209
176
84.2%
WIPO
101
83
82.2%
CERN
103
83
80.6%


If working in IP where would you rather work? Somewhere where an independent body finds only 11% of complaints justified enough to not merit dismissal; or somewhere where the same independent body finds about 18% of complaints justified enough to not merit dismissal? 

Looking closer, one can consider the number of staff for each justified complaint [counting “justified” as synonymous with “not dismissed”, not placing any value judgement on the severity of the complaint].


Complaint not dismissed
Number of staff
Number of staff for each complaint not dismissed
FAO
36
5779
160.5
CERN
20
3100
155.0
UNIDO
6
866
144.3
WHO
66
8265
125.2
IAEA
16
1832
114.5
EPO
80
8820
110.3
ILO
31
2983
96.2
Eurocontrol
29
1957
67.5
WIPO
18
1214
67.4
UNESCO
33
2156
65.3
PAHO
17
919
54.1
ITU
19
773
40.7

This shows that fewer than one in a hundred EPO staff files a complaint that is found justified, whereas for WIPO there is a much higher chance of a justified complaint being made.

Of course, the numbers are just numbers and do not necessarily reflect other factors at work, but:-
  • appearing third in the list of percent of complaints dismissed would on the face of it appear either a commendation of the EPO or a comment on the nature of complaints filed;
  • appearing average in the number of complaints not dismissed  per member of staff appears to show the EPO not out of the ordinary;
  • on either measure EPO appears to be a better workplace than WIPO.

Of course, simply pointing to the number of complaints and judgements does not tell the whole story, and certainly does not capture aspects of "culture".

A more detailed analysis from ILOAT would appear appropriate.

It might also be appropriate for ILOAT to have some form of case management in the form of an initial filter to weed out cases where there appears little prospect of success, perhaps with a cost penalty if the case is continued.


Time spent on time wasters is damaging to those who have real and justified grievances.