Job Evaluation: The Myth of Equitable Assessment

Lin Good, formerly an associate librarian at Queen’s University, is
currently a consultant.

Human-resource staff will find this book either irritating or
enjoyable—irritating if they believe that the endless paperwork needed
for job evaluation is worthwhile; enjoyable if their experience has
convinced them that equitable assessment is unattainable.

Still, they all will benefit from reading Maeve Quaid’s critique of
what has become an accepted procedure in the public and private sector.
Legislated programs such as pay equity and internal equity are based on
the assumption that systematic analysis and ranking of jobs will
establish fair salary scales, result in fewer grievances, minimize
conflicts, and alleviate dissatisfaction with pay. Quaid quotes many
sources, industrial and academic, that attribute those desirable results
to the introduction of job evaluation in the workplace.

In Canada, job evaluation was not generally used until the last 20
years or so, although it was tried in some large companies and
educational institutions much earlier. Quaid summarizes the history of
formal job evaluation, citing examples from the U.S. federal government
as early as 1838. Then, as later, the aim was to bring order out of
chaos and define differentials. Industry and government alike aimed at
“normative order,” to develop a pattern acceptable to management and
convincing to workers.

One clear beneficiary of the widespread adoption of job evaluation has
been the Hay Consulting Firm of Philadelphia, the largest compensation
consulting firm in the world. The Hay plan is a points-rating scheme,
based on job description, interviews, and consultative evaluations, all
taking hours of extra work throughout the organization.

The author presents a case study of the introduction of a formal
job-evaluation system in a Canadian provincial civil-service
organization, where she worked closely with the Hay consultant assigned
to it. She draws her arguments from that experience and from years of
academic study.

Quaid does not suggest that the old methods of ad hoc adjustments, and
hierarchical structures based on power or status, worked well. Rather,
she argues that the current vaunted rational system is equally
susceptible to “adjustments” by managers. The process is still
dependent on personal assessment and judgment, and so is inevitably
flawed and open to manipulation. The myth lies in the assumption that
the process is fair because it is cloaked in ritual, procedure, jargon,
and ceremony.

This book is controversial, because it goes against the current
received wisdom. It is also readable and convincing. Human-resource
staff, whatever system of evaluation they currently use, would be
advised to buy a copy to keep on the reference shelf. Reading it will
help them develop what Quaid calls “critical awareness,” a tool more
useful than blind faith in any system.