Job evaluation is one of those reward tools that can either scare you off, if it’s highly complex, or bore you to tears, if you constantly have to re-evaluate jobs! The real purpose of job evaluation, usually lost in a myriad of points, factors and job descriptions, is to answer the simple question, ‘where does this role fit in our organisation?’ While pay is often associated by default, job evaluation is really about assessing the internal equity; how we value roles inside our business, not necessarily what they should be paid.

Why is job evaluation important?

Job evaluation takes the emotion and heat out of grading decisions, it supports a culture of fairness and transparency and it makes good commercial business sense. Even if you don’t have formal grades, your organisation will likely have some form of natural hierarchy. Job evaluation provides a methodology that enables you to consistently and objectively determine the relative size of a role in comparison to others; this means you can decide where it fits in your organisation. Once you can visibly see how roles compare, you have a basis to determine levels/grades, pay practice, career paths etc.

How does job evaluation work in practice?

Several different evaluation methodologies and tools exist in the market. Analytical methods are the most common. They break jobs down into component parts, or ‘factors.’ These are aspects which make up a role, such as the expertise required, the nature of problems faced or the type of decision making required. Comparing these factors gives you an overall level or score. The benefit of this type of evaluation methodology is that by comparing jobs against the same factors, you can objectively see what makes one job different to another. It can also help to provide a defence against a claim of equal pay for work of equal value.

On the other hand, a non-analytical methodology compares the whole job. Ranking jobs is an example of this approach where you simply rate jobs from top to bottom. While seen as simple, this approach can be highly subjective. Without factors or component parts to compare against, jobs may be valued differently to others. Non-analytical schemes are also particularly prone to bias and sex discrimination because comparative judgments about a role, made by evaluators, have little objective basis, other than the traditional value of the job.

What to think about when introducing a job evaluation methodology

1. Understand what you want to achieve

Many organisations jump into the purchase of a job evaluation framework without clearly thinking about how it will be used in practice and what it could mean for the business. Often the rationale for introducing job evaluation is due to internal noise around fairness and pay. Job evaluation will help you steer through that noise, by creating a fair way to assess roles internally, but it also assumes capability to manage internally.

• Ask yourself and your managers what you really want in practice. Think about who will own and manage it, and consider the implications for any existing grade structures.
• Have a clear idea on the level of complexity that will suit your organisation and source a framework that will meet that need, but be aware of the implications – too much granularity can be as much of a nightmare to manage as too much simplicity!

2. Understand what you will need to do to implement it

To be able to assess a job analytically i.e. against factors, you need to have something to objectively assess it against. Most organisations use job descriptions. While you may be confident you have JDs for all your roles, consider if they are up to date and more importantly, whether they contain enough relevant information to make an informed judgement on?

Decide who you want to involve in the process. Not just in the implementation, but managing the methodology ongoing:

• How will managers be involved?
• Who will be trained and who will evaluate roles?
• Who has the final say?
• How transparent do you want the system to be?

Where points are involved in job evaluation, an extra point can mean a difference in grade. This can create extra work around evaluating and re-evaluating roles, when this is seen as the only way to promote someone or give them a pay rise. Implementing job evaluation in isolation won’t solve these problems; it should be considered as part of a wider solution, fitting in with pay and career progression.

3. Have a clear plan for communication & implementation

Don’t underestimate the impact introducing a job evaluation framework can have. Often if you say the words ‘job evaluation,’ employees hear ‘redundancy & restructuring’. Be clear about what it means for them. A validation stage prior to introduction can eliminate a lot of the queries from employees and managers and ensures a more comfortable landing. Perception of fairness will be, in part, down to the process but also perception of how an individual’s role compares to others. So, where possible, try to involve staff so they have a clearer understanding of what job evaluation is and isn’t, particularly in relation to performance. Job evaluation is about the role, not how someone performs in it, and this can often cloud judgements.

The biggest challenge many organisations face is finding a simple enough methodology that gives confidence and robustness to decision making without adding significant layers of complexity. Having worked in companies that have made an industry out of job evaluation, I can fully appreciate how important is to have that simplicity – something we work hard to help our clients achieve, and why we developed Evaluate. If you’re looking for an intuitive, simple solution for job evaluation, take a look now.

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