Job evaluation and what it implies to you

Davies Ndumiso Sibanda
TO many employees, job evaluation is viewed as a road to better salaries and improved benefits especially in this environment of economic hardships and all this arises from ignorance of what job evaluation really is.

While it is true that job evaluation will result in some job grades going up, it may also leave some jobs where they are, some jobs could be down-graded, meaning they remain person to holder.

Person to holder means that the incumbent in a downgraded job retains his grade and benefits, however, on leaving the position, the new incumbent will be placed in the appropriate grade for the job.

In the layman’s language, job evaluation puts jobs in baskets and there is a formular that guides putting those jobs in baskets. In this article, I shall concentrate on the Paterson Grading Method, which has six baskets in a hierarchical order with the lowest Band A being unskilled workers, meaning that if you are not skilled you cannot be in any other band other than A.

Band B is semi-skilled workers, Band C is skilled workers, Band D is middle management, Band E is senior management and Band F is top Management. Within each Band other than Band A, there are sub grades with supervisory duties and grades with non-supervisory duties.

If you are not supervising anybody, your job cannot cross the line to supervisory grades. The rules are very strict. The spine of every job grading exercise is the job description.

In the Paterson Grading Method, the core is decisions made by the job holder. A Job Description can have 20 pages but have very few decision-making activities and the decision making is at a lower level, which means it will go to the correct basket to the disappointment of the incumbent.

Getting higher qualifications while in a job has nothing to do with improving one’s grade as the job will not be requiring that qualification. It only becomes an advantage when higher order job vacancies arise.

The grading process is guided by a manual with rules which should be understood by the grading committee, ordinarily consultants will train the grading committee, which will then grade the jobs.

However, for senior managerial positions, grading is usually done by consultants on their own. In environments where it is toxic or where employee have no faith in internal system or where the organisation wants to cut costs, the grading is done by consultants.

It is also encouraged that at the end of job evaluation, the whole process is quality checked by another independent consultant. Job grades cannot be changed outside the job grading process.

Each grade must be subjected to grading. In many occasions many employees who thought their jobs were of a higher order get disappointed when the jobs are graded and are put in grades that are lower than those they thought were inferior to theirs. When this happens, egos have to be managed as nothing can be done to assist the employer.

There are also jobs that get smaller with the introduction of technology in terms of decision making to the extent that when the job is graded, it lands in a lower grade. This is very common nowadays as machines now make decisions that used to be made by people.

I have had cases where employees have asked for job regrading and on rewriting their job description, they emerge with fewer decisions thus the jobs get downgraded and remain person to holder. There is a need to periodically review jobs as some shrink, others pick new decision making areas and drop others, especially in this era of technology.

The second part of job evaluation is salary structuring and conditions of service development. This is usually the province of the shareholder and senior management.

Workers can only make representations but cannot dictate a salary structure and conditions of service. However, the employer is obliged to observe all legislated conditions of service for different grades.

In conclusion, for job evaluation to be credible, it must be fully explained to management and workers so as to get their buy-in and have them respect the process and should not be handled by amateurs but seasoned consultants in that particular area as it is a complex exercise.

Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: Email: [email protected]