How should an employer explain an assessment to staff?
An organisation that commissions Assessments of its own employees explains them to its staff itself. AIRS-J/1 requires staff to be told, before they start, who receives their result and what it may be used for, and it limits what a notice may claim.
Judgment is how well a person decides once AI has given the answer. AIRS-J/1 is AIR APAC's standard for judgment in AI-enabled work.
The short answer
The Standard also sets when staff are told. "Candidates are told before they start who receives their result and what it may be used for" (12.6). Those are the two points the Standard requires. The other points below are facts the Standard states, which a notice can also give. An announcement to staff does not say any of the points listed under "What not to say".
Why the explanation is the employer's
Section 12.11 requires every licence under which an organisation commissions Assessments to contain certain terms. One of them is that "the organisation has its own lawful basis and gives its own notice for the assessment, and is responsible for its own decision". AIR APAC is responsible for applying the Standard correctly and for the reading it gives. It does not make the employer's decision about the person (12.6). Because the notice is the organisation's own, so is the explanation.
What staff are told, in the Standard's terms
- What is assessed. How a person decides when working with, alongside or in supervision of AI systems. The Assessment does not test AI tool skill, domain knowledge, intelligence or personality (2.1). The Standard "does not certify occupational competence, domain expertise, comprehensive AI literacy, management of people, or performance in an unbounded workplace" (2.2).
- Who receives the result by name. The employer receives each person's result. Its facilitator receives every result. Each line manager receives the results of their own people (12.6).
- What it may be used for. An employment-grade result "may be used for development, assessment, promotion and hiring" (12.6). Hiring use opens in a market only once the applicant notice and the access-support procedure are published for that market (12.9).
- What the result is. It is AIR APAC's expert reading of the person's judgment in AI-enabled work, which the employer may rely on as one input (12.6). The organisation uses it together with at least one method of its own. A person reviews any decision in which it is used (12.11).
- What each person receives. Their own full report, with every dimension score, the band, the confidence and the evidence for each observation. Each person receives it whether or not they certify (12.5).
- Access support. A person may ask for an access support before the Assessment and receives a written decision with reasons (8.9). The employer is never told whether an access support was used (12.6). How to ask is set out on the access support page.
- How to appeal. A person may appeal a certification-status decision, or an employment-grade result released to the employer, within 30 days (18.5). "Appeal is free for the first instance." The route is on the appeals page.
- Whose credential it is. A credential belongs to the person and survives a change of employer. No employer may withhold, revoke, condition or claim ownership of it, including where it paid for it (14.4).
A session is not an Assessment
Where a programme also includes a training session, staff are told something different before it. They are told that the session gives a development reading, and that a hiring or certification decision uses a separate Assessment (12.6).
A session gives a development reading; it must not be used in a hiring, promotion or appraisal decision. A development reading has no level and no band (20.3). It reaches the employer for development only. Before the session starts, participants are told which roles receive a development reading by name, for example the facilitator and their own line manager (12.6, 12.11).
What not to say
An announcement to staff does not say any of the following.
- That the Assessment will show who should be promoted, or who is ready for a higher role. The result is one input, and the decision is the organisation's (12.6, 12.11).
- That people will be ranked or given a percentage. Certified results are reported in bands, not raw composites, to prevent false precision and league-table misuse (12.4). AIR APAC publishes no individual league tables (12.7).
- That the result decides on its own. No hiring, promotion or appraisal decision rests on this result alone (12.11).
- That a development reading will be used in an appraisal. The organisation uses no development reading in a hiring, promotion or appraisal decision (12.8, 12.11).
- That the result shows whether a person suits the role. The result describes the person's judgment in AI-enabled work at the level certified (2.2). The Standard bars AIR APAC, partner and licensee material from presenting it as a finding about a person's fitness for a role (12.6).
What this does not claim
- This article is not a notice template, and following it does not make a notice complete.
- It does not say that any notice meets the law of any market. The organisation has its own lawful basis (12.11).
- It does not say that AIR APAC writes or approves an employer's notice.
- It does not say that the Standard requires every point above in an employee notice.
- It does not say that employees may decline on the terms Section 12.9 gives applicants. That section is about applicants.
One fictional decision, worked through
The situation. Faizal Rahman is Head of HR at a regional freight forwarder, with its head office in Kuala Lumpur and operations teams in Penang and Johor Bahru. The company has commissioned Assessments for its operations managers.
What the AI produced. Faizal asks HoneyeaterAI to draft the announcement. Its line: "This announcement covers what staff need to know. It follows common practice for staff assessment notices. I am 90 percent sure." The draft says results will go to the regional leadership team and will show who should be promoted. It says nothing about appeals or access support.
The check. Faizal opens Sections 12.6 and 12.11 and the company's licence terms. HoneyeaterAI had never been given the licence terms. He asks the legal counsel to compare the draft with them.
The decision, and who was told. He decides to rewrite it. The notice names who receives each result by name: the company, its facilitator and that person's own line manager. The result is one input together with the company's own interview, and a person reviews every decision. Each person gets their own full report. The notice says how to appeal and how to ask for an access support. He briefs the line managers before the announcement goes out, and tells the legal counsel what changed.
What happened after. Three months later, a promotion panel uses the result of one operations manager together with its own interview, as the notice said it would.
AIR APAC publishes the standard for judgment in AI-enabled work, certifies people against it through its official instrument, and stands behind every result.