Job Evaluation Schemes Research Articles

The role of the workplace in ethnic wage differentials

AbstractUsing linked employer–employee data for Britain, we examine ethnic wage differentials among full‐time employees. We find substantial ethnic segregation across workplaces. However, this inter‐workplace segregation does not contribute to the aggregate wage penalty in Britain. Instead, most of the ethnic wage gap exists within the workplace, between observationally‐equivalent co‐workers. Lower pay satisfaction and higher levels of skill mismatch among ethnic minority workers are consistent with discrimination in wage‐setting on the part of employers. The presence of recognized trade unions and the use of job evaluation schemes within the workplace are associated with a smaller ethnic wage gap. These findings indicate that more attention should be placed on ensuring fairness in wage determination.

Development and validation of an instrument in job evaluation factors of physicians in public hospitals in Beijing, China.

BackgroundJob evaluation has been widely used to establish a foundation for internal equity and other human resource functions. The United Kingdom adopts the National Health Service (NHS) Job Evaluation scheme to determine the pay bands for most NHS staff and ensure equal pay for work of equal value. The challenges of recruiting and retaining physicians in Chinese public hospitals have heightened the need for a reliable job evaluation system to ensure the equality of physician compensation. The aim of this study was to construct job evaluation factors of physicians in Chinese public hospitals based on the NHS Job Evaluation scheme and to examine the reliability and validity of the established system.MethodsQuestionnaire surveys and statistical analyses were used to determine the job evaluation factors for physicians. The preliminary screening of the evaluation factors was based on a literature review, focused interviews with physicians and the Delphi method. Based on the results of preliminary screening, a questionnaire with 25 factors was designed to survey physicians regarding the importance of each factor in physician job evaluation. After the pretest, final questionnaire data were collected from 900 physicians by adopting a stratified sampling from 6 tertiary public hospitals in Beijing. A principal component analysis was used for factor extraction and structural validity analysis. The reliability was determined using Cronbach’s alpha.ResultsThe results of the principal component analysis showed that the 25 physician job evaluation factors were grouped into the 5 dimensions of Task Characteristics, Knowledge, Responsibility, Effort/Environment, and Skills. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the five dimensions ranged from 0.841 to 0.909, which indicated a high level of reliability. The result of the factor analysis indicated fair structural validity. The content validity was established by building onto the NHS Job Evaluation scheme and other well-established job evaluation systems.ConclusionsOur study indicates that the Chinese version of physician job evaluation is an instrument with fair reliability and validity, which fully reflects the characteristics of physicians in Chinese public hospitals. This system can provide an important basis for developing a physician compensation plan and ensuring internal equity in healthcare organizations.

The Role of the Workplace in Ethnic Wage Differentials

Using matched employer-employee data for Britain, we examine ethnic wage differentials among full-time employees. We find substantial ethnic segregation across workplaces: around three-fifths of workplaces in Britain employ no ethnic minority workers. However, this workplace segregation does not contribute to the aggregate wage gap between ethnic minorities and white employees. Instead, most of the ethnic wage gap exists between observationally equivalent co-workers. Lower pay satisfaction and higher levels of skill mismatch among ethnic minority workers are consistent with discrimination in wage-setting on the part of employers. The use of job evaluation schemes within the workplace is shown to be associated with a smaller ethnic wage gap.

Job Evaluation Versus Market Pricing: Competing or Combining Methods of Pay Determination?

The authors review what is happening to job evaluation today and conclude that while formal job evaluation schemes are still common, especially in the United Kingdom, research shows that the trend is towards simpler approaches. It is noted that market pricing dominates the U.S. scene, but in the United Kingdom, while market pricing is practiced extensively, achieving internal equity and demonstrating equal pay are still a major concern reported by practitioners: hence the prevalence evident in surveys of analytical job evaluation schemes. However, the trend in the United Kingdom is to consign point factor schemes into a subsidiary or supporting role and rely more on analytical matching or levelling techniques. The authors end their article with illustrations of the pragmatic approaches being adopted by U.K. organizations in combining traditional and market-driven pay determination approaches, as reported by respondents to a special e-reward research survey.

Promises and practices: job evaluation and equal pay forty years on!

ABSTRACTThis article examines the claim made by Barbara Castle when introducing the Equal Pay Act (EPA) in 1970 that there is nothing preventing unions pressing for job evaluation schemes to achieve equal pay. It does this by examining the research on potential hurdles to job evaluation and those that can be found in the UK law since the introduction of the EPA. The article concludes that the standards for selecting job evaluation and the obstacles of introducing job evaluation have significantly changed over the period, leaving little promise of an extension of its use to achieve equal pay.

Just teachers: the work carried out by full-time further education teachers

This study of full-time teachers in the further education (FE) sector in England was carried out in 1998. Initially the author interviewed the Personnel Manager of a large FE college about the recent implementation of a job evaluation scheme. A preliminary study interviewed seven teachers about what they had done for work the previous day, and asked them to record what they did on the working day after the interview. Replies were used to construct a questionnaire, which was distributed to staff in two FE colleges. The responses were used to further develop the questionnaire, which was then distributed in two more colleges. Interviews were also carried out. The data was analysed in terms of range of tasks, duties and their frequency. The data provided a detailed description of the job we call ‘FE teaching’ and demonstrated the wide range of tasks undertaken in the role. It is suggested that many of the skills needed to be successful in the job are assumed to have been achieved in earlier working life. It is argued that higher-level skills needed for success are not easily accounted for in generic job evaluation schemes.

Letters

I am a nursery nurse working in a local education authority nursery class in Herefordshire, who has, along with many others, been insulted, outraged and demoralised by Herefordshire Council's job evaluation scheme.

Restructuring Pay Equity for A Restructured Work Force: Canadian Perspectives

The province of Ontario, Canada, has developed innovative pay and employment equity legislation. The legal challenges over the pay equity legislation have established some important precedents, especially in the area of gender bias and job evaluation schemes. The Employment Equity legislation established important new principles but was repealed only a year after it was passed by a new Conservative government. The government and economic restructuring, however, are rapidly altering both the legislation and the context in which it operates. This paper considers not only the impact of such legislation in the long and short run, but also the possibilities for future legislative intervention in the new political and economic climate.One of the authors has been centrally involved in developing the legislation, in mapping alternatives and in bringing legal challenges under the legislation. The other author has been researching and writing about women’s work for more than twenty years and has served as an expert witness in numerous cases related to the issues of concern here.

RCN job evaluation to eliminate sex bias

RCN launches tailored job evaluation scheme to reflect how nurses really work

Promoting equality in Finland: a joint responsibility

Starts by stating that women are no longer a marginal group in the Finnish labour market and proceeds to explain recent changes in legislation, attitudes and behaviours, which have facilitated this situation. Draws on the involvement and insights of the author as a former Equality Ombudsperson for Finland. Concludes that the issue of equal pay for work of equal value remains difficult to resolve although job evaluation schemes are proving helpful. Also identifies areas for further equality.

Job evaluation scheme success with staff allowed to opt out

Job evaluation schemes for nurses can be made to work, Jim Norris, deputy personnel director of West Cumbria Health Care NHS Trust, told the conference.

Job evaluation schemes are being carried out too quickly

Job evaluation schemes are being carried out too quickly

Nursing unions oppose job evaluation scheme

Nursing unions oppose job evaluation scheme

Personnel Policies, Structural Characteristics, And Equity In Job‐Evaluated Payment Systems

The information presented in this article was collected as part of a national survey concerned with the extent and nature of job evaluation schemes in operation in Great Britain, sponsored by the Department of Employment. The full results of that study have been published elsewhere.

Factors Contributing to the Implementation of Unbiased Job Evaluation Schemes

The aim of this article is to identify some of the factors that contribute to the implementation of “unbiased” job evaluation schemes. The data used for the present analysis were collected as part of a major survey concerned with the extent and nature of job evaluation schemes in operation in the United Kingdom, sponsored by the Department of Employment. We focus particularly on the unbiasedness of pay between female and male workers.

Job Evaluation: The role of management and unions in four countries

The development of job evaluation practice is examined in Britain, America, the Netherlands and South Africa. The role of management and unions is traced to highlight important content, process and value issues. The initial phases of development of job evaluation arise out of attempts by major public or private bodies to rationalize chaotic wage rates. Job evaluation schemes are often implemented by management together with significant increases in wages and salaries. Unions invariably welcome the increases and do not question the rationality of the underlying plans. When, however, increases are no longer as large and when unions become more critical and knowledgeable they question the underlying tenets and processes. Further impetus to the development of job evaluation practice is gained when equal pay legislation or intent is introduced. Questioning of the plans and processes often leads to union involvement and joint management/labour committees devising plans and evaluating jobs. On the basis of this simple developmental model it is hypothesized that organizations in South Africa are entering the critical questioning phase and that considerably more attention will be focussed on union involvement in job evaluation processes.

Job Evaluation and Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value

In July 1982 the European Court of Justice ruled that the United Kingdom's Equal Pay Act infringes Directive 75/117 of the European Economic Community, which provides for equal pay for men and women where the same work, or work of an equal value is being performed. The ruling of the European Court has necessitated changes to the Equal Pay Act in order to give effect to the principle of “equal value” and attention has focused, therefore, on how to give the concept practical expression. To date, the most commonly used method of measuring value is job evaluation, which is said to measure the demands a job makes on a worker. This raises the question as to whether a job evaluation scheme in itself, is an effective instrument for ensuring equality of treatment in assessing the value of men's and women's jobs.

Forced comparisons and Youden Squares as a basis of improving job ranking in job evaluation

The use of forced comparisons in job evaluation is examined analytically to demonstrate how such characteristics as non-linearity of ranking, inconsistency of individual judges ranking and non-commonality of judgements of committees can be used to advantage in establishing job values. The use of full factorial and Youden Square plans as the basis of evaluation is also examined. The mathematical equations for both approaches are developed and illustrated by a numerical example. Paired comparisons have been used extensively in the United Kingdom as the basis of job evaluation schemes. However, the statistical reasoning behind these schemes is not known by the users and proponents of the approach. The use of forced comparisons, rather than paired comparisons, offers advantages in job evaluation. In addition, the use of Youden Squares offers economy in analysis.

Job Evaluation, Equal Pay, and the Trade Unions

S.l(2)(b) of the UK Equal Pay Act provides that where a woman's work has been rated as equivalent with that of a man — in other words given an equal value under a job evaluation scheme — she is entitled to equality of treatment for any term of her contract covered by the scheme. The Act, however, does not oblige employers to carry out job evaluation exercises. Women who are not, therefore, employed on ‘like work’ with men (S.1(2)(a), and who are not covered by a job evaluation scheme, cannot claim equal pay under UK law.

Job Evaluation, Technical Expertise and Dual Ladders in Research and Development

The problem of how to weight technical expertise is familiar to anyone concerned with the design and implementation of company job evaluation schemes, and nowhere is this problem more acute than in Research and Development (R & D) departments. Here, typically, there are large numbers of highly qualified technical specialists who both deserve and demand promotion on the basis of their technical contribution. Yet, because technical staff have relatively few of the kind of responsibilities which carry high weighting on most job evaluation schemes, they rarely warrant higher grading on conventional criteria. And where they are promoted, their excellence as scientists wins them promotion into research management. In a recent study conducted by the author, concerning the reasons why R&D staff in a large UK company sought posts elsewhere in the organisation, the belief that promotion was easier to get outside R&D was one of the most important factors. A dual ladder system may offer a partial solution to this problem. By a dual ladder is meant the establishment of two parallel hierarchies within R & D: a management ladder and a ladder for technical specialists. The two ladders carry different responsibilities but equivalent rewards and status. In theory, at least, a distinction is made between responsibility for resources, located on the management ladder, and responsibility for technical merit, located on the technical ladder.