The world of work is changing. And yet, the way we look at the value of jobs is still underpinned in many respects by outdated principles and methods.

Job evaluation (JE) needs to be better attuned to our times. It needs to reflect more closely new ways of working and changes to the nature of work itself. Contribution-based models can help us do just that.

What’s wrong with JE today?

For HR and reward practitioners, JE will probably bring up thoughts of points-driven, highly analytical and somewhat formulaic methods - often related to headache-inducing experiences. Outside of this group, JE is, at best, typically seen as ‘something’ linked to pay and managed/owned by a small group of ‘experts’, a process that is opaque and difficult to understand.

This is just not right in a world with increasing scrutiny on how reward decisions are made and greater demands for transparency from employees and other stakeholder groups.

In addition, work today is a lot less about production lines, prescriptive roles and ‘command and control’ structures. We now need to support agile working, creativity and more flexible structures.

When you consider that the most commonly used JE methods nowadays can be traced back to the early/mid-20^th century, you would be hard-pressed not to wonder whether it makes sense to use these approaches to assess the jobs of today – and tomorrow.

How contribution-based JE can help

In essence, contribution-based JE is a straightforward model that uses a set of descriptors to guide the placement of roles in job levels or grades. These descriptors are intended to reflect the specific nature of work in each organisation and clear steps to determine differences in contribution throughout the organisational hierarchy.

Sounds a bit too simple? Well, it is. Therein lies the strength of this approach.

The descriptors provide a reference that is fully transparent and easy to understand. These descriptors use language that is relatable to the organisation and focuses on dimensions of work that are crucial to the delivery of business priorities.

Critically, the descriptors also reflect principles that provide the basis to effectively and consistently measure the relative value of jobs. This provides the necessary rigour to produce JE decisions that are defensible and can support fair and equitable reward structures. This is particularly where expert advice can come in handy.

Moreover, contribution-based models can also deliver significant savings in implementation and licensing costs, as well as a reduction of training times to just a couple of hours with this approach, from 1-2 days with more traditional methods.

Aligning JE to employee engagement            

It may not be immediately apparent how JE can contribute to employee engagement, but contribution models can (and do) bring this to life.

The descriptors that underpin these models shed light on the overall purpose of work in the organisation and, by extension, the purpose of the organisation as a whole. In this context, contribution models help create a greater sense of purpose that is proven to drive employee engagement.

In addition, being able to clearly portray the aspects of contribution that are expected at different levels of seniority will give employees the ability to have greater visibility, and therefore ownership and direction, in their own development.

Finally, by looking at contribution more broadly, beyond the limitations of prescriptive and at times outdated or inaccurate job descriptions, organisations can trigger a greater sense of autonomy in the way their employees perform their work and a resulting positive impact on employee engagement.

If you’re thinking that job evaluation can work better in your organisation, and this article has sparked some interest in contribution-based models, we should talk. Send me an email on ku/oc/gcq//nauj.

Juan Novoa, Consulting Lead at QCG - April 2021