INTRODUCTION TO JOB EVALUATION IN ORGANIZATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Why is it that Sam Jones, engineer, makes more money than Ann Banks, who is also an engineer in the same company? Is this an example of sex discrimination in wages? What if we were also to report that Ann Banks makes more money in her engineering job than Ted Adams, an entry-level programmer? Would this lessen your suspicions about the wage-setting practices of our fictitious company? If your response is one of uncertainty, then you probably recognize that several factors need to be considered in determining wages for individuals. First, any wages paid to employees should satisfy an internal consistency criterion. Jobs inside an organization are compared to a set of standards and each other to determine their relative contributions to the organization’s objectives. To satisfy employee expectations about fairness, more valuable jobs should receive higher ‘‘scores’’ in the comparison process. In our example above, internal consistency triggers the question: How does the work of an engineer compare with that of an entry-level computer programmer? The second wage-determination factor is external competitiveness. Wages for jobs inside an organization should be compared against wages outside the organization paid by competitors. How much do other em- ployers pay engineers, and how much do we wish to pay our engineers in comparison to what other employers would pay them? Finally, wages are also a function of the distinctive contributions that individual employees make on their jobs. The level of individual contributions depends on an as- sessment of performance and / or seniority of people doing the same job or possessing the same job skills. Before we jump to the conclusion that Sam Jones should not be making more than Ann Banks because they both are engineers, we must first assess whether their individual contributions have been identical. The pay differential may be warranted if Sam consistently performs better than Ann or if he has more seniority.

Of these three factors affecting wages, this chapter concentrates on only one: the process of determining internal consistency. Specifically, we focus on ways that organizations compare jobs in terms of their relative contributions to the goals of the firm. To the extent this process of ensuring internal consistency is successful, several positive outcomes can be expected. Research suggests that internal consistency may improve both employee satisfaction and performance (Lawler 1986). Alter- natively, a lack of internal consistency can lead to turnover, grievances and decreased motivation (Livernash 1957). Without a fair structure, employees may resent the employer, resist change, become depressed, and ‘‘lack that zest and enthusiasm which makes for high efficiency and personal satis- faction in work’’ (Jacques 1961).

The first stage in determining the relative worth of jobs is to assess what the content of these jobs is! This process, as described elsewhere in this Handbook, is called job analysis. A job analyst is charged with the responsibility of acquiring valid (relevant) and reliable (consistent) information about the contents and requirements of jobs. The information obtained through job analysis is usually codified and documented in a job description. It provides a foundation for various human resource management functions, such as establishing selection criteria, setting performance standards, and determining compensation. For our purposes here, the most important function of job analysis is to provide input information into determining the relative worth of jobs within an organization. This process of systematically comparing the contents and requirements of jobs to determine their relative worth (rank ordering) within the organization is called job evaluation. One of the outcomes of this evaluation process is usually a hierarchy of jobs arranged from most valuable to least valuable.

The resulting job structure can be used as a guide in setting pay rates. For the rates to be equitable, jobs that are higher in the structure should be paid more than jobs that are lower in the job structure. This is an important point! Even though this chapter focuses primarily on the ways that organizations determine the relative value (i.e., compared to each other) of jobs, at some point a comparison must be made to external market wages. This external comparison may be the source of an important conflict. Occasionally, jobs that are similar in worth to the organization may be dissimilar in price in the labor market! Suppose, for example, that for a particular organization ‘‘skill’’ and ‘‘effort’’ are judged by top management to be equally important in achieving corporate objectives. Some jobs in that organization may require more skill than effort and other jobs may require more effort than skill.

These jobs will nonetheless be valued similarly in the job structure. The market rates for these jobs, however, may be quite different. Other organizations may not value skill and effort equally. Or perhaps market supply is lower and market demand is higher for people capable of performing the skilled jobs, resulting in higher market wages for the ‘‘skill’’ jobs relative to the ‘‘effort’’ jobs. Thus, for the organization to attract the most qualified workers, it may have to offer wages that are higher than it would offer on the basis of internal consistency alone.

The balance between internal consistency and external competitiveness is a key issue in any employer’s compensation strategy. One firm may emphasize an integrated approach to all human resource management, and internal consistency of pay would be part of that strategy. If so, there would be a relatively close correspondence between its job structure and its pay structure. Another firm may emphasize the relationship between its pay level and pay levels in the labor market. In this firm, there may not be as close a correspondence between the company’s job structure, as originally determined through job evaluation, and its pay structure. Indeed, as we shall discover, the firm may not even systematically develop a job structure through job evaluation, choosing rather to adopt the external market’s evaluation of jobs (i.e., adopt wholesale the market rate without considering internal worth).

This tension between value as assessed within an organization and value as assessed by compet- itors in the external labor market is but one of several conflicts that may arise in deciding on wages for jobs. Indeed, other ‘‘actors’’ have also influenced the wage-determination process.

The Influence of Society and Its Values on Job Evaluation

In some societies, at different times through history, egalitarian value systems have been adopted by entire countries. An egalitarian philosophy implies a belief that all workers should be treated equally (Matthew 20.1–16). To some extent, this philosophy underlies the job-evaluation process in those remaining countries that can be classified as communist or socialist. Although some differentials do exist across different jobs, the size of these differentials is much smaller than if this societal influence were not present. Given the recent movement toward capitalism around the world, it is evident that an egalitarian policy may not continue to exert a strong influence over the valuation of jobs.

A second example of societal impacts on wage determination is illustrated by the ‘‘just wage’’ doctrine (Cartter 1959). In the 13th century, skilled artisans and craftsmen began to prosper at the expense of nobles and landowners by selling goods and services to the highest bidders. The church and state reacted by proclaiming a schedule of ‘‘just wages’’ that tended to reflect that society’s class structure and that were consistent with the prevailing notion of birthrights. In essence, the policy explicitly denied economic factors as appropriate determinants of pay.

The proliferation of computers and accompanying information explosion in the recent past has forever changed the way work is done. Not surprisingly, countless companies (like Bayer) have been forced to make ‘‘retain, reject, or redesign’’ decisions about their job-evaluation systems. Most have chosen the redesign option in order to keep the values that have made them so successful but incor- porate their new perspectives regarding employee autonomy, teamwork, responsibility, and the like (Laabs 1997). Sometimes referred to as competencies or value driver, job characteristics such as leadership required and customer impact are beginning to form the basis for a whole new set of compensable factors (Kanin-Lovers et al. 1995; McLagan 1997).

The Influence of Individuals on Job Evaluation

Normally great pains are taken to ensure that position evaluation is kept entirely independent from person evaluation (i.e., job evaluation is kept distinct from performance evaluation, which in- volves the evaluation of individuals as they perform jobs). Seasoned job evaluators counsel novices to determine the worth of a job independent of its incumbent. The focus should always be on the work, not the worker. After all, a job is relatively stable, whereas the person holding that job may change regularly. For the purposes of determining job worth, individuals are viewed as interchange- able. To deal with the distinction between job and person value, organizations traditionally have set upper and lower limits on job worth (called pay grade minimums and pay grade maximums) and allowed salary to fluctuate within that grade as a function of individual performance or worth.

For certain jobs, though, the worth of the job is inextricably linked to the incumbent performing the job (Pierson 1983). This exception is particularly evident for managerial and executive positions. The person’s unique abilities and knowledge may shape the job. For these jobs, the relative importance of the individual occupying the job leads to increased emphasis on personal attributes in job valuation. The top jobs in almost any organization seem to be designed more around the talents and experience of the individuals involved than around any rigidly defined duties and responsibilities. For profes- sional workers, too, the nature of their work and the knowledge they bring to the task may make it difficult to distinguish job worth from individual worth. Thus, for professionals such as scientists or engineers, pay may reflect individual attributes, accomplishments, or credentials (i.e., a B.S. in Chem- istry, a Ph.D. in Engineering).