What is job evaluation?

Job evaluation is a method for comparing different jobs to provide a basis for a grading and pay structure. Its aim is to evaluate the
job, not the jobholder, and to provide a relatively objective means of assessing the demands of a job.
However, it is important to recognise that to some extent any assessment of a job's total demands relative to another will always
contain elements of subjectivity. The aim is to minimise subjectivity and make decisions about jobs as rational, consistent and
transparent as possible.
Job evaluation is a mechanism for establishing agreed differentials within organisations.
There are two basic types of job evaluation schemes, 'analytical' and 'non-analytical':
Analytical schemes
Jobs are broken down into components or demands, known as factors, and scores are awarded for each factor. The final total gives
the overall rank order of jobs.
An analytical job evaluation scheme can provide a defence against a claim of equal pay for work of equal value, but only if you can
demonstrate that the scheme is free of sex bias. You need to ensure that you can do this. The checklists will help you to do so.
Non-analytical schemes
Whole jobs are compared with each other. There is no attempt to break the jobs down and analyse them under their various
demands or components.
Non-analytical schemes are particularly prone to sex discrimination because comparative judgements about jobs made by the
evaluators will have little objective basis, other than the traditional value of the job.
Examples of non-analytical schemes include job ranking and paired comparisons. These represent different ways of drawing up a
list of jobs in rank order.
The rationale for non-analytical job evaluation is that it produces a hierarchy of jobs that approximates to the 'felt-fair' ranking of
these jobs in the minds of the people working in the organisation. But, in many cases,whether the jobholders are predominantly
male or predominantly female influences the placing of that job within the overall rank order. Non-analytical job evaluation can thus
perpetuate a situation in which the jobs most frequently performed by women are regarded as being of less value than the jobs
mostly performed by men.
A non-analytical job evaluation scheme does not provide you with a defence against a claim of equal pay for work of equal
value.