Job Evaluation: Reasons, Elements, Advantages and Disadvantages

Introduction

What is Job Evaluation? Job evaluation is one of the tools that government and organizations use to determine the salaries that workers will be paid after completion of their duties or functions, and it plays important role in management study. According to the British Institute of Management, evaluation is the process of analyzing and assessing the content of jobs in order to place them in acceptable rank, which can be used for remuneration. Remuneration is the payment made to workers for the

services or works they offer to organizations. There are reasons behind anything done in organizations, so, job evaluation has its reasons for existence or introduction. There are elements of job evaluation, and these are the building blocks of every job evaluation in every company. Furthermore, job evaluation has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of job evaluation are dependent on the angle of view and likewise its disadvantages.

A man was not born with job evaluation as there are reasons that lead to its advent, and these reasons are thus:

1. The spread of job evaluation in the United States of America is dated between the 1930s and I940s and the reason for its introduction were for wage rationalizations. There are groups that determine minimum wage in different countries of the world. The Federal Government of Nigeria fixes the minimum wages which are to be paid to all workers working in government establishments.

2. The second reason for job evaluation is directed towards internal recognition by managements of many organizations. These managements started the job evaluation years ago for orderly and logical need in establishing wage rates.

3. Another principal reason for job evaluation is to provide uniformity and flexible payment structure to all workers. When there is job evaluation, at the end of every week or month, the government or organization have already know the amount they will pay each worker without going too far.

There are six principal elements of job evaluation and they are job analysis, job description, job specification, job rating, money allocation and employee classification.

Job analysis: Job analysis is the technique which is used in assessment and selection decisions. It is used in the determination of the person that can carry out a particular job assignment properly. In job analysis, the information obtained is used in determining job requirements, training needs, position, classification and grade levels. Job analysis is used for promotion and performance appraisals.

Job description: It is a document that summarizes the major duties and responsibilities of employees in any organization. It includes the qualifications which contain the education, work experience, knowledge and skills possessed by the employee.

Job specification: It is defined as an official document which details out the duties of the employee, skill, knowledge, abilities and minimum qualifications of state jobs. A job specification involves detail listing of the minimum qualification which employees acquired before they applied for any job. It describes the kind of person an organization wants to hire for any particular function.

Employee classification and money allocation: These as elements of job evaluation have their own descriptions. Money allocation is assigning money rate of pay to each job according to a definite system scale. Employee classification has to do with how committed an employee is in terms of the hours or time spent on workplaces. Many organizations have both part-time and full-time workers in their companies. Also, other workers can perform functions in office for just 2 to 5 hours and end for the day.

Job rating: In management, job rating is conducted to put the result on how excellent or poor workers perform in their jobs. Workers rated high in many organizations are serious minded one while those rated low do not perform excellently. Rating some workers higher than others in some organizations cause problems as those rated low feel inferior and cheated.

The advantages of job evaluation are as follow:

1. Job evaluation provides organized sequence for describing and placing value on jobs. The value placed on any job is dependent on the reward the job received as the wage.

2. It makes workers to be satisfied as they are paid for the work they perform unlike when there was no job evaluation. This reduces complaint among workers in many organizations.

3. As a result of the satisfaction derived from job evaluation, higher morale, greater co-operation, reduced labor turnover, less absenteeism and greater efficiency is achievable among organizational workers.

4. With job evaluation, unions can play part in deciding between levels and pay.

5. The job description can be employed in recruitment and selection processes. This helps the organization that recruits their workers in so many ways.

Many things that have advantages in this world we are living in also have disadvantages and that of job evaluation is among the many. The disadvantages of job evaluation are thus:

• One of the disadvantages of job evaluation is that the rates of pay are affected by supply and demand for workers as well as the nature of the job. There may be difficulty in obtaining the services of certain workers if job evaluation is not followed with respect to labor market conditions.

• There is small opposition from trade union on the existence of job evaluation, notwithstanding that the union do not regard it as removing the need for negotiation of wages and salaries of workers.

• Job evaluation is a problem because it introduced variations away from the normal basic system. Since the advent of job evaluation has been extended to include white collar jobs, workers in this group have been very critical and they have been compelled a recognition of the fact that all the job ratings are essentially subjective.

• Assessment in job evaluation is usually inaccurate. This is one of the major weaknesses in job evaluation. Again, if number of jobs is graded small, jobs of a different character may be merged together in the same rate.

• Job evaluation leads to issue in allowance allocation as no allowance is made for differences shown in performing certain jobs. Because of job evaluation, the same amount of wage that is paid to Mr. Henry is issued to Mr. Kelvin, not minding that the former performed more experienced job than the Latter.

Conclusion

Things that occur in many locations of this world have their reasons for happening and that is in conjunction with the popular saying, nothing happens in vain. The introduction of job evaluation in managements has its reasons and those reasons were discussed on this page. Also, elements, advantages and disadvantages of job evaluation were made comprehensible through this write-up.

References

Principle and Practice of Management by Vincent. O; and

US Office of Personal Management on Assessment and Selection.