Job Evaluation – Practical Steps for Success

When clients ask us for Job Evaluation, it can often be unclear as to what part of the Reward process they are referring to. Indeed, it is often confused with Salary Benchmarking. While it is different to Salary Benchmarking, it is equally important.

What is Job Evaluation?

Job Evaluation ensures that the contribution of each job can be measured and rewarded appropriately. We use internal relativity to measure your roles so that they flow correctly, much like an organisational chart.

Why undertake Job Evaluation?

There are many benefits to carrying out a Job Evaluation project.

Most importantly, it will underpin your legal compliance with the Equality Act 2010, as well as the new EU Pay Transparency Directive, and ensure an equitable and consistent approach to reward.

From a talent management perspective, it can allow you to fully understand the jobs in your organisation and plan suitable development and career paths.

Practical Steps for Job Evaluation Success

Now that we know what Job Evaluation is and why we do it, let’s look at the practical steps for success.

1. Communicate

The single most important step in any process involving updating anything reward related is staff engagement. We strongly recommend informing staff of your plans to review roles and communicating a brief description of what this means.

You know your business and culture better than anyone, so it’s important to decide the best method of communication – for example, staff forums, email, intranet update. This doesn’t mean making promises on outcomes i.e. salary increases, but simply informing employees of the process and what it is there to do. If you need support with this, we can tailor your communication or attend / host a staff briefing for you.

2. Understand your roles

Are your Job Descriptions an accurate reflection of the roles in your organisation? This is a really important step as if the roles are not correct, the Job Evaluation results won’t be either.

We have many clients that are unsure if it is worth the time to go back and review Job Descriptions before the Job Evaluation process (or even during it, if necessary). We would always advise them to do this to ensure the process is fair, consistent and equitable.

3. Understand the process

It is important to understand what you will be getting from the process, how it works and what it means.

We rank our roles consistently across a total of 15 factors, ranging from ‘Knowledge’ through to ‘Working Environment’. This means we can accurately demonstrate where a role sits within your organisation and why, ensuring you comply with the Equality Act 2010.

This process is entirely about the Job Description and person specification, not the individual. We can’t stress enough how important this is. We are often with clients after the Job Evaluation process, being informed that person X works harder than person Y therefore they should score higher. To reiterate – Job Evaluation is about the process and not the individual.

4. Understand how the roles are scored 

In our evaluation process, the roles are ranked on role content and person specification, hence the reason it is necessary to make sure your Job Descriptions are accurate. Job titles are irrelevant as they vary so much from organisation to organisation.

5. Understand how the roles are ranked

Once the roles have been scored on the role content and the person specification, we also ensure that the role is placed in the correct rank order, i.e. a line manager / supervisor will always rank higher than its direct report. This ensures a consistent approach and can help you build an organisational chart.

6. Understand how the rankings can show progression

You now have your Job Description / Person Specification, score and rank of the role, so what else can this be used for? The answer is all elements of reward!

Once you have your Job Description and Evaluation complete, you can then think about the following:

• Salary Benchmarking – Now you know where your roles sit and the organisational responsibility, it is a great time to review the market rate of pay and benefits.
• Pay Progression – Do you have pay scales to show how individuals can move through a band?
• Competency Framework – What are the expected attributes / behaviours / skills required to progress through a role in your organisation?
• Career Progression – Now that you have your levels, you can chart a clear path from entry level to CEO!

7. Rinse and repeat

This is a holistic process and doesn’t end on the last role evaluation. To ensure and support consistency, we recommend when roles evolve and change or you add new roles, you undertake the same process each time to ensure fairness, equity and integrity of the process.

In Summary

Job Evaluation is incredibly important to ensure that you have a fair and equitable approach to role evaluation as covered by the Equality Act 2010, and can be used to underpin your entire reward strategy.

Remember, the process should be about the content of the Job Description and the Person Specification and not about the individual.

At Turning Point, we can support you throughout the process and can guide you to the best solution for your organisation and people. We offer expertise in Job Evaluation schemes – through our analytical cloud-based Job Evaluation tool, OrbitEval™, or our bespoke grading system.

Whichever methodology we use, we adapt our approach based on your unique requirements and culture, ensuring you have a robust and consistent method by which you can position your roles internally and inform progression.

If you have any questions or need help with your organisation’s remuneration policy, please contact our team of reward specialists by emailing us at info@turningpointhr.com

By Daniel Hilton, Senior Client Manager