Job evaluation

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Job evaluation is the process of systematically determining a relative value of jobs in an organisation. In all cases the idea is to evaluate the job, not the person doing it.

Job Ranking is the most simple form. Basically you just order the jobs according to perceived seniority. It's easy in a small organisation, but get exponentially difficult with lots of different jobs.

Pair Comparison introduces more rigour by comparing jobs in pairs, but really it's a more structured way of building a basic rank order.

Benchmarking or slotting sets up certain jobs that are analysed in detail. These are then used for comparison to slot jobs against these benchmarks.

Job Matching allocates benchmarks too, but when a position is matched the elements of the job that differ are re-evaluated. Usually this evaluation will be done with a PFA or classification system.

Point factor analysis (PFA) is the old-school (but fair) bureaucratic method for determining a score for each job. Jobs are broken down into factors such as “knowledge required”. A set of closed questions in each factor break down to detail such as “level of education”. The responses to these questions are given a score, and totalled for each factor. Each factor is given a weight, and this effects the contribution made to the overall total score by that factor.

Factors can be weighted according to their significance to the organisation, and this allows the pay scheme to be linked to the organisation’s strategy.

Job classification can be at the whole job or factor level. Each factor (or the whole job) is a single question that has very clearly defined levels. Compared to an equivalent PFA scheme classification, it has fewer but more complex questions requiring more job analysis from whoever is answering the questionnaire.

The modern trend appears to be away from complex PFA schemes towards factor classification methods. This puts more responsibility in the hands of whoever is doing the evaluation.