Equal Pay Insight

What is Job Evaluation?

Job evaluation is the process of assessing the relative size of jobs within an organization. The “size” means the relative significance or importance of a job to the organization. Determining the size will always involve an element of subjectivity as size can only be measured by comparing various factors such as the knowledge and experience required, level of responsibility and impact on end results.

All employers use some kind of evaluation to decide how much they should pay their staff. Regardless of whether a formal job evaluation process is implemented, employers decide which jobs are worth more than others in monetary terms and pay staff accordingly. The use of a formal job evaluation process is more common in the public sector and has helped implement the NHS Agenda for Change, Single Status and a framework agreement in Higher Education.

Job evaluation is:

Comparative: Judgement has to be used as job evaluation deals with relationships not absolutes. We can try to make evaluations based on objective analysis but there is no single measurement which will tell us precisely what size a job is and what it should be paid.

Judgemental: Job evaluation can never be described as scientific since the range and factors depend on the organisation and what weight they choose to ascribe to each factor. That’s why it is so important to ensure that steps are taken to minimize the risk of bias, such as removing personal details from job descriptions, and conducting quality assurance tests on a regular basis.

Analytical: Judgements have to be informed and founded on an analytical process of gathering facts about jobs, and systematically using these facts to inform job size. Job evaluation methods are based on job analysis, which is the process of collecting, analysing and setting out information about jobs. This is why most organisations who use job evaluation use a specific job description template for all jobs. Without a template, you would not be comparing like with like, and often there is a direct read across from job description headings to specific job evaluation factors.

Centred on the Job: A person’s performance should not be taken into account in job evaluation which is concerned with the job and not the person. As an example, let’s say Adam and Sophie both work as HR Business Partners. They have identical roles and responsibilities. Adam does the bare minimum; Sophie goes the extra mile. If their jobs were freshly evaluated, they should have the same job size (only distinct roles are evaluated). Adam and Sophie’s employer may wish to award a performance based element to Sophie, but this would not change her job size and performance elements should be kept distinct from base salary. If not, there’s a risk that an employer would not be able to defend different pay for equal work.

Structured: A framework will help evaluators make rational and consistent evaluations. The framework should be agreed methods, factors and processes which should be consistently applied. Some organisations have policies which specify their structure and include who will evaluate the roles, when it is done, and the form of job description.