Job evaluation schemes: How to select, design, and implement them

By Tony Hatton-Gore

Job evaluation is the process of assessing the content of a job by reference to its core components, such as skill, effort and responsibility, for the purpose of placing jobs in order of hierarchy. The evaluation of the demands of particular jobs, rather than the performance of the people doing them, is at the heart of job evaluation.

Job evaluation can be a complex process and time consuming to conduct. However, once an effective scheme has been introduced and bedded down it can bring a number of benefits to the organisation.

Job evaluation establishes a basis for all stakeholders (including management, employees and trade unions) to agree on the relative value of jobs to form the basis of career structures within the organisation and to establish a fair pay system. The need for restructuring following a merger is a common reason for carrying out job evaluation, as job evaluation can provide a logical underpinning to the introduction of a single pay and grading structure.

Job evaluation provides employers with a tool to show how their pay and grading structure has been developed. Transparency in how the organisation values jobs and relates them to the market is key to demonstrating fairness in pay, which in turn plays an important role in motivating employees and developing an engaged workforce.

An employer might also consider using job evaluation if it has issues such as: real or perceived anomalies in the pay system or pay structure; pay grievances; or changes in job content that need to be managed, such as those due to technological change or organisational restructure. Job evaluation is also the most reliable way for employers to identify where women and men are doing work of equal value, for equal pay purposes.

In this guide, learn about:

• Minimising bias and discrimination
• Types of job evaluation scheme
  • Analytical job evaluation
  • Non-analytical job evaluation
• Equal pay for equal value
• Proprietary versus tailor-made schemes
• Project planning
  • Governance
  • Project team
  • Costs
  • Communication
• Developing an analytical job evaluation scheme
  • Developing a factor plan
  • Factor levels
  • Weighting
  • Scoring
  • Testing the factor plan
• Choosing benchmark jobs
• Collecting job information
• Evaluating benchmark jobs
• Computer-assisted job evaluation
• Ranking benchmark jobs
• Completing the grading structure with non-benchmark jobs
• Appeals procedure
• Monitoring

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