Full Guide for Job Evaluation Process

JOB EVALUATION

            Job Evaluation is a system wherein a particular job of an enterprise is compared with its other jobs. In the present industrial era, there are different types of jobs which are performed in every business and industrial enterprise. Comparative study of these jobs is very essential because on the basis of such study the structure of wages for different types of jobs is prepared. The comparison of jobs may be made on the basis of different factors such as duties, responsibilities, working conditions, efforts, etc. In nut shell, it may be said that job evaluation is a process in which a particular job of a business and industrial enterprise is compared with other jobs of the enterprise.

            According to Wendell French, “job evaluation is a process of determining the relative worth of the various jobs within the organisation, so that differential wages may be paid to jobs of different worth. The relative worth of a job means relative value produced”.

Objectives of Job Evaluation:

The following are the objectives of job evaluation:

1. To secure and maintain complete, accurate and impersonal descriptions of each distinct job or occupation in the entire plant;
2. To provide a standard procedure for determining the relative worth of each job in a plant,
3. To determine the rate of pay for each job which is fair and equitable with relation to other jobs in the plant, community or industry?
4. To ensure that like wages are paid to all qualified employees for like work;
5. To promote a fair and accurate consideration of all employees for advancement and transfer;
6. To provide a factual basis for the consideration of wage rates for similar jobs in a community and industry.

Principles of Job Evaluation:

            There are certain broad principles, which should be kept in mind before putting the job evaluation programme into practice.

These principles are:

1. Rate the job and not the man. Each element should be rated on the basis of what the job itself requires.
2. The elements selected for, rating purposes should be easily explainable in terms and as few in number as will cover the necessary requisites for every job without any overlapping.
3. The elements should be clearly defined and properly selected.
4. Any job rating plan must be sold to foremen and employees. The success in selling it will depend on a clear-cut-cut explanation and illustration of the plan
5. Foremen should participate in the rating of jobs in their own departments.
6. Maximum co-operation can be obtained from employees when they themselves have an opportunity to discuss job ratings.
7. In talking to foremen and employees, any discussion of money value should be avoided. Only point values and degrees of each element should be discussed.
8. Too many occupational wages should not be established. It would be unwise to adopt an occupational wage for each total of point values.

Methods of Job Evaluation:

The following are the methods of Job Evaluations:

1.Ranking Method:

            The ranking method requires a committee typically composed of both management and employee representatives of job in a simple rank order, from highest to lowest. Rating specialists review the job analysis information and thereafter appraise each job subjectively according to its general importance in comparison with other jobs. In other words, an overall judgment is made of the relative worth of each job, and the job is ranked accordingly.

2.Job Grading or Job Classification Method:

            This method works by assigning each job a grade, level or class that corresponds to a pay grade for instance Grade I, Grade II, Grade III and so forth. These grades or classifications are created by identifying gradations of some common denominations, such as job responsibility, skill, knowledge, education required, and so on. Then, for each job grade so created standard job descriptions are determined. Thereafter, such standard description is matched with job descriptions in the organisation. The standard description that most nearly matches the job description determines the job’s grading.

3.Factor-comparison Method:

            This method is a combination of ranking and points systems. All jobs are compared to each other for the purpose of determining their relative importance by selecting four or five major job elements or factors which are more or less common to all jobs. These elements are not predetermined. These are chosen on the basis of job analysis. The few factors which are customarily used are:

1. Mental requirements,
2. Skill,
3. Physical requirements,
4. Responsibilities,
5. Working conditions and etc.,

            A few jobs are selected as key jobs which serve as standard against which all other jobs are compared. key job is one whose contents have been established over a period of time and whose wage rate is considered to be presently correct by the management and the union.

Advantages of Job Evaluation:

Job evaluation enjoys the following advantages:

1. Job evaluation is a logical and to some Extent an objective method of ranking jobs relative to one another. It may help in removing inequalities in existing wage structures and in maintaining sound and consistent wag differentials a plant or industry.
2. In the case of new jobs, the method often facilitates fitting them into the existing wage structure.
3. The method helps in removing grievances arising out of relative wages; and it improves labour- management relations.
4. The method replaces the many accidental factors, occurring in less systematic procedures, of wage bargaining by more impersonal and objective standards, thus establishing a clear basis for negotiations.
5. The method may lead to greater uniformity in wage rates, thus simplifying wage administration.
6. The information collected in the process of job description and analysis may also be used for the improvement of selection, transfer and promotion procedures on the basis of comparative job requirements.
7. Such information also reveals that workers are engaged on jobs requiring less skill and other qualities than they possess, thereby pointing to the possibility of making more efficient me of the plants labour force.

Limitation of Job Evaluation:

1. Though many ways of applying the job evaluation technique are available, rapid changes in technology and in the supply and demand of particular skills have given rise to problems of adjustment.
2. Substantial differences exist between job factors and the factors emphasised in the market. These differences are wider in cases in which the average pay offered by a company is lower than that prevalent in other companies in the same industry or in the same geographical area.
3. Job factors fluctuate because of changes in production technology, information system, and division of labour and such other factors. Therefore, the evaluation of a job today is made on the basis of job factors, and does not reflect the time job value in future. In other words, continuing attention and frequent evaluation of a job are essential.
4. Higher rates of pay for some jobs at the earlier stages than other jobs or the evaluation of a job higher in the organisational hierarchy at a lower rate than another job relatively lower in the organisational hierarchy often give rise to human relations problems and lead to grievances among those holding these jobs.