Job evaluation – how relevant is it today?

Job evaluation, the process used to determine the relative worth of a job to an organisation, has been with us for most of the 20th Century. While it has sometimes fallen out of favour, today in 2007 55% of employers in the UK continue to use job evaluation according to the latest CIPD Reward Management survey which covers 1 million employees’. In a world where employers place an increasingly high value on personal contribution, what accounts for the popularity of job evaluation?

Equal pay considerations has become one of the key reasons for using job evaluation, as the results of the 2007 e-reward survey on job evaluation shows, where 86% of organsiations use analytical schemes. It is clear that such analytical schemes, typically Points Rating such as Hay job evaluation or Factor Comparison; which break the job into their component parts, provide a greater defence on equal pay challenges than non analytical schemes.

The external market continues to play a primary role in determining pay levels and annual awards. However evidence for the 2007 CIPD survey shows that job evaluation is typically the second most important factor to manage internal pay relativities.

Of course, it is easy to forget that, job evaluation often provides the building blocks to establish pay and grading structures within larger organisations, including for example, the NHS Agenda for Change Modernisation programme.

Within the public and voluntary sector which account for the largest users of job evaluation, this is often seen as vital to ensure that a fair pay system operates which may include job evaluation committees with trades union or employees as part of the panel.

Any form of job evaluation relies on job analysis which, as a minimum, requires current job descriptions, to provide a basis for evaluating jobs. While the analysis process can include questionnaires, interviews etc, there needs to be sufficient information to make qualitative and quantitative assessments of the selected job factors that make up the job being evaluated.

Take a look at the Tips section below on what are the Golden Rules that need to form part of your job evaluation scheme?

Tips: Feature of your Job Evaluation scheme – what are the Golden Rules? **

• Communications – Be clear from the outset on what is communicated and how this will be carried out. Always ensure that the appeals process is made clear - this is particularly important where job evaluation forms part of a larger organisational change programme.

• Transparency – Make the process of job evaluation as transparent as possible to increase people’s perception of fairness and consistency. Ensuring that people understand how the process works is often more important than the actual result which may be kept confidential.

• Check for pay anomalies – Job evaluation needs to be a dynamic process which can provide ‘acid test’ indicators on pay structures and pay relativities. If you have a job evaluation system, make sure that the results of evaluations are regularly used to check for pay anomalies which should be acted upon where these are identified.

• Don’t make it more complex than it needs to be – The sometimes maligned reputation of job evaluation rests on the experience of an over wieldy bureaucratic system that fails to deliver results. Make the system as simple as possible while ensuring there is sufficient substance to carry out fair and robust evaluations which command external credibility.

• Record keeping – Keep accurate results and justification. This may sound obvious however employment tribunals typically fail in such cases where this has been overlooked.  How will information be kept? For example, will there be a computerised database or other system?

Website of the Month

Each month, we’ll give a quick round up of a website and here we look at the NHS Scotland Pay Modernisation website.

Why look at the site? – It gives everything you need to know about the Job evaluation scheme for the largest employer in Europe as part of the Agenda for Change pay modernisation.

What works well? – The site is clear, well laid out and easy to scan information quickly. It is easy to forget the central role of job evaluation played in the often controversial Agenda for Change.

What could be improved? – While content is accessible and of good quality, this site may not attract the casual browser.

Just News

E-reward survey shows 88% of UK employers satisfied with their Job evaluation scheme

According to the 2007 e-reward.co.uk survey on job evaluation which covers under 900,000 employees, 60% of employers have a job evaluation scheme for some or all of their employees. In addition, of those who currently don’t operate a scheme, nearly half are planning to introduce one in the future. Nearly all respondents use job evaluation to design and maintain a defensible pay structure and 88% were satisfied that it achieved its objectives.

800 Librarians in Vancouver return to work after 88 days on strike

The long running librarians strike in Vancouver, Canada has finally been resolved as workers returned to work on 24 October 2007. The long running strike where pay equity; job evaluation and job security cited were key concerns was resolved following a ‘deal’ brokered by CUPE Local 391, the librarians’ union and Vancouver Public Library provides a 17.5% increases over a 5-year term. Agreement was also given for a joint committee on classification issues where pay equity concerns can be discussed.

STOP PRESS – Helen Murlis, Director of Hay Group and well known speaker and writer on reward issues speaks at the CIPD Reward SIG event on 20 Nov 2007. Check out the event details here.

 ***** Please note this web link will be removed from 19 November*****

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** Please note that this advice is provided as guidance only. If you need specific advice relating to your requirements, please call Reward First on + 44 (0) 1367 710 618. 

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