JOB EVALUATION IN ORGANIZATIONS:MAINTAINING THE JOB-EVALUATION SYSTEM

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MAINTAINING THE JOB-EVALUATION SYSTEM

As an administrative procedure, job evaluation invites give and take. Consensus building often re- quires active participation by all those involved. Employees, union representatives, and managers may be included in discussions about the pay differences across various jobs. Job evaluation even involves negotiations among executives or managers of different units or functions within the same organi- zation. So viewed as an administrative procedure, job evaluation is used for resolving conflicts about pay differences that inevitably arise over time.

Handling Appeals and Reviews

Once the job structure or structures are established, compensation managers must ensure that they remain equitable. This requires seeing that jobs that employees feel have been incorrectly evaluated are reanalyzed and reevaluated. Likewise, new jobs or those that experience significant changes must be submitted to the evaluation process.

Training Job Evaluators

Once the job-evaluation system is complete, those who will be conducting job analyses and evalu- ations will require training, especially those evaluators who come from outside the human resource department. These employees may also need background information on the entire pay system and how it is related to the overall strategies for managing human resources and the organization’s objectives.

Approving and Communicating the Results of the Job-Evaluation Process

When the job evaluations are completed, approval by higher levels in the organization (e.g., Vice President of Human Resources) is usually required. Essentially, the approval process serves as a control. It helps ensure that any changes that result from job evaluation are consistent with the organization’s overall strategies and human resource practices. The particular approval process differs among organizations. Figure 4 is one example.

The emphasis on employee and manager understanding and acceptance of the job-evaluation system requires that communications occur during the entire process. Toward the end of the process,

Job Evaluation in Organizations-0057

the goals of the system, the parties’ roles in it, and the final results will need to be thoroughly explained to all employees.

Using Information Technology in the Job-Evaluation Process

Almost every compensation consulting firm offers a computer-based job evaluation system. Their software does everything from analyzing the job-analysis questions to providing computer-generated job descriptions to predicting the pay classes for each job. Some caution is required, however, because ‘‘computer assisted’’ does not always mean a more efficient, more acceptable, or cheaper approach will evolve. The primary advantages for computer-aided job evaluation according to its advocates include:

Alleviation of the heavy paperwork and tremendous time saving Marked increase in the accuracy of results

Creation of more detailed databases

Opportunity to conduct improved analyses (Rheaume and Jones 1988)

The most advanced use of computers for job evaluation is known as an expert system. Using the logic built by subject matter experts and coded into the computer, this software leads a job evaluator through a series of prompted questions as part of a decision tree to arrive at a job-evaluation decision (Mahmood et al. 1995).

But even with the assistance of computers, job evaluation remains a subjective process that in- volves substantial judgment. The computer is only a tool, and misused, it can generate impractical, illogical, and absurd results (Korukonda 1996).

Future Trends in the Job Evaluation Process

Job evaluation is not going to go away. It has emerged and evolved through the industrial, and now the informational, revolution. Unless everyone is paid the same, there will always be a need to establish and institutionalize a hierarchy of jobs in the organization. The process should, and will, continue to be improved upon. The use of computer software will dramatically simplify the admin- istrative burdens of job evaluation. Furthermore, new technologies and processes will enable orga- nizations to combine internal job-evaluation information with labor market data to strengthen the internal consistency–external competitiveness model discussed above.

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