Job evaluation is a systematic way of establishing the relative value or worth of jobs in an organization. Job evaluation is typically conducted by a team of experts familiar with the organization's structure and operations. They use various methods to assess the value of each job, such as comparing it to similar jobs in the organization or using a point system to assign values to different aspects of the job.
Job evaluation projects fail largely because people fail to appreciate some assumptions underpinning the job evaluation process. The things listed in this article will help both experienced and new people in the job evaluation process.
Below I list everything you need to know about job evaluation:
1. Job evaluation is a systematic process for determining the relative value or worth of jobs within an organization.
2. Job evaluation is used to create a fair and equitable wage structure.
3. The first known use of job evaluation was in the U.S. Civil Service Commission (Patton, Littlefield, and Self, 1964).
4. Evaluators tasked with evaluating jobs often bring biases that are hard to control during the evaluation process.
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5. Organizational politics can influence the outcome of a job evaluation process. When it's political, an organization can go through a job evaluation to fix a few individuals. This starts with the reasons for undertaking such an exercise.
6. The reliability of job evaluation systems has been questioned a lot. The level of agreement by the evaluators is often used to assess reliability. Others have argued that the reliability calculated in this way does not show that the process is reliable but instead shows the stereotypes and biases of the evaluators.
7. People who are part of the job evaluation committee struggle to separate the job (which is the focus of the evaluation) from the person (incumbent).
8. The basic assumption of job evaluation is that some jobs contribute more to the organization's success than others therefore, they must be valued at a higher rate than those that contribute less.
9. The first step in job evaluation is ensuring that the job descriptions used in the process are of good quality especially capturing the correct job content. Because most job descriptions are incumbent-driven, they tend to inflate the experience and educational qualifications needed at a minimum.
10. When preparing job descriptions, the incumbents (because job descriptions are incumbent-driven) inflate the role and responsibility to get a higher grade.
11. Job evaluation involves assessing the duties and responsibilities of each job to determine its relative worth.
12. Job evaluation typically involves assigning points to each job based on its duties and responsibilities.
13. Job evaluation can be conducted using various methods, including job ranking, job classification, and point factor systems.
14. Job ranking involves comparing jobs to one another to determine their relative worth.
15. Job classification involves grouping similar jobs into categories based on their duties and responsibilities.
16. Point factor systems involve assigning points to each job based on its duties and responsibilities.
17. The results of job evaluation can be used for compensation decisions.
18. The resulting grade from a job evaluation groups jobs of equal value to the organization.
19. Employers need to ensure job evaluations' accuracy to avoid potential legal implications such as discrimination claims or wage disputes.
20. Employers should use best practices when conducting job evaluations to ensure fairness and equity in the workplace.
21. Job evaluations can help employers ensure fair and equitable wages for employees by providing data that can be used to inform compensation decisions.
22. Job evaluations can help employers create a more equitable workplace by ensuring that all jobs are accurately evaluated according to their duties and responsibilities.
23. In job evaluation, the focus is on evaluating the job and not the qualities of the individuals occupying such jobs.
24. Job evaluation is not concerned with the ability of the job holder or the volume of work they handle.
25. Most job evaluation systems and processes suffer from subjectivity in evaluating performance.
26. It is extremely difficult to ensure personal preferences or prejudices of evaluators do not bias that job evaluations.