Overall, the literature and individual educators take confidentiality very seriously. As O’Connor says, this practice “reflects the complex realities of the workplace and participants” (1995, no pagination). It is important to ask questions to understand what the issues are for the HR staff person. Why are individual progress reports so important now when group reporting was initially agreed upon? What role does assessment play in the company’s future plans for the workforce? How can some of their needs be met without breaking the confidentiality that program participants agreed to? In these circumstances, the direction and support of a workplace committee/team can be helpful in establishing confidentiality from the start, clarifying past practices in the organization and providing firm support for good practice now. Likewise, the committee could ensure that quotes used in an ONA report respect the confidentiality of all the participants.

For many educators, lack of confidentiality is cause for refusing to provide services to an organization. Some educators have first hand experience of test results being used to lay off or replace workers — a painful lesson. The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in Learning for Our Lives says, “just say no” to a “program where there is testing and reporting to the employer on individual results or progress” (p. 19).

The use of standardized assessment tools deserves serious questioning. What’s the situation? Why use this avenue? If people are performing well, what will these test results be used for? Will the results speak to the real use of language and literacies in that workplace? As mentioned earlier, many factors contribute to people’s performance; standardized tests isolate skills and usually decontextualize them. Thus, the tests can have little resemblance to the language and literacy tasks that are meaningful to people. Furthermore, they don’t account for the rich social relations, which also help shape literacy practices.