How to Conduct a Job Evaluation

How to Conduct a Job Evaluation
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As a business owner you want to make sure that your employees are paid appropriately. The best way to do this is to perform an evaluation of all the jobs in the company. A job evaluation is a process where you inspect each job and reposition job descriptions according to what the employee actually does in the position. This way, you can always have an accurate description and rankings of the jobs in your company.

Step 1

Gather your managerial team together to assist you in the job evaluation. According to Microsoft, this team should be made up of a good representation of the people working in your company. It should also include a good sampling of all company positions.

Step 2

Decide on factors on which you will evaluate all the jobs. Factors should be things like "Financial Responsibility," "Customer Service Level," or "Physical Difficulty." Nemesis suggests determining these factors based on the jobs which are being evaluated.

Step 3

Place the factors in a spread sheet and include a place to score them. A good rule of thumb is to use a range of one to ten for each factor.

Step 4

Observe the jobs. Talk to the employees doing the job to get their take on the job factors. Interview the managers to gain insight about what each job actually does. In some cases, do the job in question to get the best possible understanding of what the position entails.

Step 5

Compile your data and average out the scores for each factor on each position. Each factor should have a score within your range on each job.

Step 6

Separate the jobs into their respective departments and begin ranking them according to their scores. At the end of this process, you should see which levels of positions are higher on your organizational chart than others. If there are positions which are out of order, change where they fall in the organizational chart and adjust your pay for those positions accordingly.

Step 7

Rewrite any job descriptions which require a revamp. This process will give you insight as to what your employees actually do in each job. Make sure that your job descriptions accurately reflect that.

Step 8

Adjust pay where appropriate. For the most part, you should not have to adjust everyone's pay level, but you may find that there is a job which entails much more work than you thought it did. In this case, a raise in pay for that job may be warranted.

Tips and Warnings

  • Take copious notes during the evaluation. The more you remember and observe, the better your data will be, especially during the process of rewriting job descriptions. Job evaluation does a few things. It will allow you to get a handle and update your job descriptions. It will also give you a better impression of how similar jobs in different departments relate to each other. For example, if you run a hotel, you may know that a Front Office Supervisor has more duties and higher pay than a Front Office Agent, but you may not know how a Front Office Agent should relate to a Housekeeper. This will give you that information.
  • Be honest. The job evaluation will not work unless each person approaches this without bias. Bias can lead to inaccurate employee classifications or employees not being paid what they should be.

Things You'll Need

  • Job Descriptions
  • Spreadsheet program

References

Article reviewed by Molly Solanki Last updated on: Aug 13, 2010

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