Evaluating Job Evaluation

Task 3.2
Evaluate the process of job evaluation and other factors determining pay

Job evaluation
Job evaluation is a formal process by which the relative worth of various jobs in an organisation is determined for pay purposes. A systematic comparison of the worth of one job with that of another eventually results in the creation of a wage or salary hierarchy unique to the organisation. Essentially, job evaluation relates the amount of pay for each job to the extent to which the job contributes to the organisation’s effectiveness. It is not always easy to determine the worth of all jobs in an organisation. Job evaluation involves making judgments that are subject to error on the part of job evaluators. For example, it may be obvious that the

Ideally, the committee includes employees, managers, and human resource specialists.

Job evaluation is usually performed by analyzing job descriptions and, occasionally, job specifications. It is usually suggested that a job description be split into several sections, such as managerial, professional-technical, and clerical or operative. It makes sense in writing job descriptions, to use words that are linked to the job evaluation factors.

Another essential step in effective job evaluation is to select and weigh the criteria. It appears that results are the same whether all factors or just a few factors are considered, especially if the job evaluation compares education, experience, amount of responsibility, job knowledge, work hazards, and working conditions. It is important that the factors used are accepted as valid for the job by those being evaluated.

Four frequently used methods of job evaluation are:

Job ranking
The system used primarily in smaller, simpler organisations is the ranking of jobs. Instead of analyzing the full complexity of jobs by evaluating parts of jobs, the job ranking method has the evaluator rank the order of complete jobs, from the simplest to the most

Essentially this is done by deciding how much of the wage rate for each benchmark job is associated with skill requirement, how much with mental effort, and so on across all compensable factors. The advantage wit this method is that the criteria for evaluating jobs are made explicit. The disadvantage is that it is a complex and difficult method to explain to dissatisfied employees. translating factor comparison into actual pay rates is a somewhat cumbersome exercise, and can be overcome by using a quantitative technique based on