Job evaluation aims to provide this equity and consistency by defining the relative worth of different jobs in an organisation. Job evaluation is a process consisting of several steps.
The following are the steps in job evaluation process:
1. Job Analysis
Job evaluation process starts with the base provided by job analysis. Job analysis identifies various dimensions of a job in two forms: job description and job specification. Job description provides responsibilities involved in the performance of the job while job specification provides attributes required in the job performer. Both these taken together provide information about various factors involved in different jobs.
2. Appointment of Committee for Job Evaluation
As pointed out earlier, job evaluation is a specialized function and is carried on by a committee consisting of members drawn from different line departments of the organisation, outside experts, besides HR personnel. HR person generally acts as committee convener or chairman of the committee.
3. Training for Job Evaluation
Since members of the job evaluation committee are drawn from different fields. they should be provided brief training for job evaluation. The training should be, given through a series of meetings in which the following issues are generally discussed and doubts cleared.
- What is job evaluation?
- Why does this company need job evaluation?
- How will it work?
- How does it affect promotion policy?
- How will the system be kept up-to-date?
- Does job evaluation mean that everyone whose job is in the same grade gets the same rate of pay?
- How does the publication of job grades and salary bands affect confidentiality?
- How does the system cater to additions or alterations in jobs?
- What happens if an individual disagrees with his grading?
- How quickly will appeals on grading be dealt with?
- How will the company go about grading new jobs created as the result of change or expansion?
4. Defining Criteria for Job Evaluation
Evaluation of job or any other element, within or without organisational context, is always comparative and for comparison some evaluative criteria must exist. For job evaluation, defining of criteria involves two aspects. First, there should be identification of critical factors involved in a job which must be evaluated. These factors are responsibility, skill and effort. Other factors which are relevant for consideration are working conditions, difficulty involved in job performance, time-span of discretion, number of subordinates to be supervised etc. Second, after identifying various factors, criteria in respect of these have to be fixed. For fixing criteria, some benchmark has to be established. Such a benchmark can be established either by taking various jobs within the organisation or the benchmark being used by the industry sector. Various industry associations throughout the world have developed benchmarks for various jobs in their own sector.
5. Selecting Methods of Job Evaluation
After fixing the criteria, the next step is the determination of methods through which various criteria can be applied in job evaluation. There are both qualitative and quantitative methods which can be used. Since a particular method emphasizes on some specific aspects and is not complete in it, usually, a combination of different methods has to be followed.
Read More About: Methods of Job Evaluation
6. Job Classification
Based on the results obtained by different methods used for evaluating different factors in a job or the evaluation of the whole job as such, various jobs are classified into different grades. This classification may produce a large number of jobs. e.g., class three officer, class two officer, class one officer, senior officer and so on. These numbers are merged into one to have a grade. From wage and salary administration point of view, there may be internal classification of a grade. This job classification is used to build job hierarchy which shows the relative worth of different jobs within the organisation. A job at higher level of hierarchy is more worthwhile as compared to that at the lower level. Wages and salaries are fixed according to this ordering.