Job Evaluation

Job evaluation: a definition

Job evaluation (تقييم الوظائف) is the process of determining the relative value of each job within an organisation, compared with the other jobs in the same organisation. Each job’s value is its position in that comparison. Two things are then built on the result: the order of levels, which places each job above or below the others, and the pay structure attached to those levels.

Job evaluation assesses the job, not its holder

The first rule of job evaluation is also the one from which practice can slip. The evaluation applies to the job, whoever holds it. The employee’s experience and performance are addressed in the performance appraisal and in pay within the range, not in setting the level of the job itself.

Two questions sit side by side here. One is the level of the job, and job evaluation sets it. The other is how a particular person performs in that job and what experience they bring to it. The appraisal addresses the second question, and pay within the range reflects the answer. Job evaluation answers the first question and leaves the second to those two processes. Experience and performance belong to the person, and they can differ between two people who hold the same job. The level belongs to the job, and it does not change with the person who holds it.

When the evaluation slips from the job to the person, the level of the job can rise when its holder is promoted, and not fall again when that holder leaves. The level then follows the career of the person in the job rather than the content of the job. As a result, the structure can collapse gradually.

A level raised for the holder remains attached to the job after the holder has gone, so the job keeps a level that was set for a person rather than for the work. The collapse is gradual because it happens one promotion at a time: each raised level stays in place, and the next promotion raises another.

Approaches to job evaluation

Three approaches to job evaluation are set out below.

• Ranking. Jobs are ordered from highest to lowest on an overall judgement. It is quick, but it is hard to defend when the result is challenged. The speed comes from comparing each job as a whole, with no breakdown into parts. The difficulty of defending it comes from the same feature, because a challenge to the order meets a general judgement rather than a set of stated reasons.
• Classification. Levels are defined first, each with a written description, and every job is then placed in the level whose description it matches. The descriptions come before the jobs are placed, and the placing is done against them. Our glossary entry on job classification covers this approach in its own right.
• Points. Factors are chosen, such as the knowledge required, the scope of decisions, the impact of error and supervision. Each factor is given a weight and a scale of degrees, and the job’s points are added together. These are the compensable factors of the point method. It is the slowest of the three approaches, and in return it gives a detailed reason that can be shown when the result is challenged. The detail comes from the structure of the method: a job’s total can be traced back to the degree it received on each factor and the weight that factor carries, and that breakdown is the reason that can be shown.

What comes before and after job evaluation

Job evaluation is preceded by job analysis. The evaluation works on an accurate description of the tasks and responsibilities of each job, and it does not produce that description. Job analysis is where the description is drawn up, and job evaluation takes it as its starting material. The accuracy the evaluation depends on therefore has to be in place before the evaluation begins.

Job evaluation is followed by building pay ranges and linking those ranges to market data. The levels come out of the evaluation, the pay ranges are built on the levels, and the market data is linked to the ranges.

That sequence is what makes job evaluation the practical basis of internal pay equity: a difference in pay that rests on a documented difference in the value of the job has a reason that can be stated. Because the levels come from the evaluation and the pay ranges are built on the levels, a difference between the pay of two jobs can be traced back to a difference recorded in the evaluation, and that recorded difference is the reason.

What undermines job evaluation

• Relying on the job title instead of the content of the job. The content is what job evaluation sets out to measure, and a title can change while what lies beneath it stays the same. An evaluation that relies on the title is therefore measuring the name of the job, and the name can move without the work moving with it.
• Carrying it out once. Jobs change, and the structure can become a description of the past. An evaluation records the jobs as they were when it was carried out. Once the jobs change, the structure built on it still describes them as they were then, and the levels and pay attached to it describe that past as well.
• Evaluating to justify existing pay instead of setting the level first and deriving the pay from it. It reverses the order described in the previous section, in which the level comes first and the pay range is built on it. When the pay comes first, the evaluation is fitted to a figure that has already been decided, and the level is worked backwards from that figure.
• No route for challenge. An evaluation that cannot be reviewed can be seen as a closed decision, however sound its method. A sound method does not by itself supply the possibility of review: the route for challenge has to exist alongside the method. The point approach gives a detailed reason that can be shown when a result is challenged, and a route for challenge is where that reason can be shown.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.