Pay Equity and Job Evaluation In Your Organization

Are pay equity and job evaluation an important part of your organization?

Gender issues are prominent around the globe. In industrialized countries, one of the bigger gender issues is equitable pay between genders as is evident by the The World Economic Forum – 2018 Global Gender Gap index. About 24 industrialized countries have introduced or strengthened legislation to close the pay gap over the past decade.

The legislation takes many forms, such as:

  • Holding organizations accountable to explain gender pay gaps to employees;
  • Reporting salaries by gender and requiring action plans to close gaps;
  • Requiring public transparency of employee compensation to enable comparison of salaries;
  • Requiring organizations to conduct pay equity audits and assess the effectiveness of their pay equity programs; and
  • Requiring detailed analysis of equal pay for similar work.

The latter is the most exacting form of legislation as it requires comparison of compensation for similar types of work (versus equal work). This requires job analysis, job documentation and comparison of jobs based on Skill, Effort, Responsibility and Working Conditions i.e. Job Evaluation.

Organizations are understanding the importance of pay equity and job evaluation

Organizations are gravitating to job evaluation, even in the face of less-demanding legislation. In the U.K., for example, regulations require organizations to report gender pay gaps on their website and to the government. The right to be paid equally is inherent in all employment contracts. Therefore, where an employee proves inequitable pay, it is a breach of contract. Organizations are shielding themselves from such claims by introducing gender neutral job evaluation systems.

In the U.S., states such a New Jersey have extended the concept include pay gaps based on race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, age, etc. Many other states are following suit.

Job evaluation and equitable pay has taken on prominence across North America and around the globe. However, traditional job evaluation systems are viewed as complex, time consuming, bureaucratic and costly. The typical complaints are that:

  • Huge investments in time and effort are needed to create a job description;
  • Developing the job description is an exercise in creative writing; inflate the description get the points;
  • The evaluations are subject; the written narrative needs to be interpreted in light of the obtuse evaluation criteria; and
  • Evaluations are not credible as the process is a black box to both the manager and the employee.

Tools are available to help your organization with pay equity and job evaluation

Encompassing Visions has overcome the issues through innovative tools, processes and technology. Encompassing Visions has:

  • Invented a better way to collect Job Data; an on-line, multiple-choice Job Analysis Questionnaire collects job information, which only takes about one hour to complete;
  • The multiple-choice questionnaire eliminates the need for creative writing (no open- ended questions);
  • The questionnaire probes Job Data across 27 clearly defined job factors; the granularity of the Job Data captures all aspect of the job;
  • The Job Evaluations are objective – system generated evaluations based on the responses to the questionnaire (no subjective interpretation of evaluation criteria);
  • Technology enables storage, as well as, easy and efficient management of the Job Data to produce system generated job descriptions and job evaluations (as well as, recruiting tools).
  • The Job Descriptions incorporate the actual response to the questionnaire; there is no question as to what constitutes the evaluation criteria; the system is transparent.

Job evaluation reimagined!

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