If you use an analytical job evaluation scheme you need to be able to show that the scheme has been designed and implemented in such a way that it does not discriminate on grounds of sex, (see Bromley and others v Quick 1988 IRLR 249), race, disability or age. For more on this see checklist B and checklist C. It is for you as the employer, and not your job evaluation supplier or consultant, to show that the scheme does not discriminate.
There are a number of ways in which a scheme may be regarded as discriminatory, but the most important are that:
- Values have been attributed to the different demands against which the scheme measures the jobs, but these values cannot be justified without reference to the sex, ethnicity, disability or age of the person on whom these demands are made.
- The scheme fails to include, or properly take into account, a factor, or job demand that is an important element in, for example, a woman’s job (e.g. caring demands in a job involving looking after elderly people).
- The scheme gives an unjustifiably heavy weighting to factors more typical of a man’s job (e.g. the physical demands of being employed as a gardener).
- A factor in the woman's job (such as 'mental concentration') has been awarded fewer points than a factor in the man's job (such as 'physical effort') when it should have received the same or more points.
- The 'physical effort' of the man's job has been overrated compared to the 'manual dexterity' required for the woman’s job.
- Even where she has received the same or more points than a man for a particular factor, she may still argue that the demands of her job under this factor have been underrated, and that the difference in points under the factor should have been bigger.
You will also need to check the outcomes of the job evaluation scheme as a whole for sex bias. This means checking what impact the scheme has had on women and men, that is, how many women and how many men have moved up or down the grades? Any ensuing pay protection (red-circling) should also be free of sex bias and should be phased out as soon as is practicable. For more details see checklist E.