Employee pay plan uses the following establishment; the salary survey, job evaluation, pay grade grouping, price pay grade-wage curves, and fine tune pay rates. The salary survey is done by employers and Human Resource personnel. The data collected helps determine the employees’ salaries such that they are not over or under-compensated for their input at the workplace. It is typical for employers to pay 20% or more of the current market rates for vacancies at their firms in a bid to attract qualified and experienced staff.
Job evaluation is a prudent activity undertaken by employers. It helps determine a career’s worth in relation to another. The exercise also helps in creating the salary hierarchy utilized in many organizations. In our case, Margaret, who handles the legal affairs, earns more than Maureen, the part-time business contracts manager because after conducting job evaluation, Margaret’s job proved more vital and involving Maureen’s job. That is known as job ranking according to Dessler (2011). Job evaluation is formal and dictates that jobs that require higher levels of engagement, greater level qualifications, and experience, as well as specialization, pay more than those with lesser or that need generalized requirements. Job evaluation is done through evaluating compensable factors which are also the fundamental aspects of a particular job.
The assessment is a judgmental process that requires the expertise of Human Resource personnel, supervisors, managers and trade union representatives. The exercise is done through the following methods; ranking, classification, point and factor comparison (Dessler, 2011). The ranking method of job evaluation is the most widely used. The method involves obtaining position information, selecting raters, and compensable factors. The method ranks a job relatively to other jobs, using overall or general factors such as job difficulty. A single ranking cannot be done for all the jobs in an organization. Instead, department rankings are carried out.
Job Evaluation Methods
Job Ranking used to gather information on a particular job. This method is the easiest because it determines a position’s level of difficulty, expertise or skills needed in relation to other jobs (Dessler, 2011). Once the people involved in the exercise have been identified, the activity is carried out relatively fast unlike other job evaluation methods.
Job classification or job grouping is widely used by raters to group jobs. Similar jobs are put in the same categories and usually, have similar pay plans. The method is used to categorize jobs offered by the federal government, where jobs are classified. The advantage of this ranking method is that s can be applied to many professions. For instance, jobs requiring different sets of skills but have the same level o difficulty are put in the same class.
The point method is another classification method that is quantitative. It identifies the factors in a position that should be compensated, the degree of presence of such factors. Evaluation committees are tasked with undertaking the exercise. The method is advantageous because it applies to virtually all jobs present in the current job market. Additionally, the evaluators are usually professionals in the fields they evaluate and therefore, their reports are widely acceptable among people.
There is also the factor comparison method. The method ranks a job through the skills needed for one to efficiently perform a job. A job is ranked several times depending on the presence of compensable factors present in the job. Jobs with more compensable factors are better rated than those with few compensable factors. The method is preferred for jobs with many compensable factors such as professionals in the medical sector. Its main advantage is that it ensures that workers are duly compensated for all compensable factors present in their work
Finally, there are computerized job evaluation methods. These are free of bias, have increased objectivity and streamline job analysis. However, they are time-consuming. Their main advantage lies in the fact that they are free of bias, manage high data level and use statistics to perform their tasks.
References
Dessler, G. (2011). Human Resource Management 12th Edition. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall.
Mondy, R. W., & Mondy, J. B. (2010). Human Resource Management. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
