Creating a fairer Britain
You should not regard the evaluations as finalised until they have all been checked for consistency.
It is helpful to check for consistency as you go along, as this avoids the final check being too onerous.
It is good practice for the steering group to 'sore-thumb' the results i.e. to identify queries about factor evaluations or position in the ranking that stand our as incorrect or questionable and to refer these back to the evaluation panel for checking.
Beyond that, the only revisions to scores should be as the result of appeals.
Unless the previous grading structure genuinely represented equal pay for work of equal value, a job evaluation exercise carried out according to equal opportunities and equal value principles is unlikely to reproduce the previous rank order of jobs. Such an exercise will almost certainly result in changes to the rank order of jobs within the population covered by the exercise. Other things being equal, jobs undertaken predominantly by women are likely to move up the rank order relative to jobs undertaken predominantly by men.
This does not mean that jobs undertaken mainly by women should not move down the relative rank order, or that those undertaken predominantly by men cannot move up the relative rank order, but that where this happens you should be able to justify it by reference to changes in the demands of the relevant jobs, as measured by the job evaluation scheme, by comparison with the previous organisational hierarchy.
You can check the position by comparing the rank order resulting from the job evaluation exercise with that implied by the previous grading structure, with analyses of the two rank orders by sex of the jobholder. The rank order should be of individual employees (as job titles can disguise differences in ranking between 'male' and 'female' jobs). The rank order should be based on all employees, not just the benchmark jobs.
If your previous grading structure was also based on an analytical job evaluation exercise, this is a straightforward comparison of rank positions of jobs. If your previous grading structure was not based on analytical job evaluation then you will have to compare the new rank order with the grouped rank order implied by the old grades, that is, by assuming that all jobs from each old grade shared an equal position in the old overall rank order. In either situation, you need to look at the following aspects:
In the UK, jobs with similar overall demand levels, as indicated by their total weighted (and consistency checked) points are usually grouped together into a grade, identified as a range of job evaluation scores. Common pay rates or scales and other terms and conditions of employment are then applied to each grade. The jobs in each evaluated grade are then treated as having been ‘rated as equivalent’. For more on this see legal background.
The main determinant of the relationship between the rank order of jobs resulting from a job evaluation exercise and the new wage/salary structure is thus the positioning of the evaluation scheme grade boundaries.
You can check that the positioning of the grade boundaries has not contributed to discrimination against female employees by answering the following questions:
If jobs immediately above a grade boundary are carried out predominantly by men and/or those immediately below the grade boundary are carried out predominantly by women, can you justify the positioning of the boundary without reference to either the sex of the relevant jobholders or to the previous pay/grading structure?
It is good practice to set up a formal appeals procedure to deal with those cases where the employees believe their job has been unfairly evaluated.
A representative appeals committee is usually established.
It is important that this committee should be trained both in job evaluation and in the avoidance of sex bias. You should ensure that the members of the appeals committee do not condone sex discrimination, and that the chair is someone with an interest in ensuring both fair evaluations and the elimination of sex discrimination.
You should inform all employees that care has been taken to ensure that the job evaluation procedure has not discriminated against employees of either sex.
You should also let employees know that they can use the appeals procedure if they feel that they have been wrongly graded because of their sex or if they feel that the scheme has resulted in sex discrimination in some way.
Changes in grading as a result of a job evaluation exercise should reflect all elements of the remuneration package. Relevant questions here are:
Not all pay structures are based on grades. Where pay is directly linked to the evaluation result then it is important to check there is a perceptible difference in job size.
The outcome of a new job evaluation scheme should be monitored to check for sex discrimination and other prohibited forms of bias. Periodic reviews of existing schemes should also take place to ensure that discrimination does not creep in.
Basic data will be required. This should include the number of employees by gender, ethnicity, disability, age, job-title, grade and salary for both the new structure and the old. If a review of this data indicates that there are gender imbalances then you will need more detailed information in order to identify where the problem lies.
Regular maintenance of a scheme is mainly concerned with claims for re-grading, reassessments due to changes in job content and the grading of new jobs. You should take care to ensure that when you re-grade jobs the jobs mostly done by men are not re-graded in such a way as to restore the previously biased differentials that had placed those jobs higher than jobs mostly done by women.
If you do need to revise evaluations of jobs after the initial evaluation phase, most probably on account of new job information, you should ask the following questions: