Using Job Evaluation in Your Organization

Avoiding Pay Discrimination Pitfalls

What is the role of job descriptors in discrimination?

Studies have shown men and women describe their jobs differently. When comparing their personally written descriptions, male and female incumbents of the same job title used different words to describe their responsibilities. Undervaluing the words to describe a job can result in lower job evaluations and be detrimental to women.

What about compensable factors?

Some important aspects of jobs tend to be ignored in job evaluation. Interactions with others may be a case in point. Many women's jobs require considerable contact with others, but this factor is undervalued in most job evaluation plans. Plans can be biased toward the kinds of interactions typical of men's jobs.

Do analyst expectations lead to discrimination?

Most job evaluators, after they become experienced, find themselves using a formal plan to validate their initial impression of the job. To the extent that this impression is a result of knowledge of the job and the evaluation instrument, the results are probably accurate. However, if the information is inadequate, then the results are likely to be flawed.

Can job evaluation solve pay discrimination?

Job evaluation is not a perfect tool for preventing pay discrimination, but job evaluation still holds promise as a means of eliminating unjust pay differentials.

Job evaluation may be an effective solution to pay discrimination when:

• The job is evaluated — not the person.
• One job evaluation plan is used throughout a company. This ensures all jobs are evaluated using a consistent job evaluation methodology.
• Job evaluation factors effectively represent all jobs within a company. This ensures appropriate valuation of key factors, such as skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.
• Factors are defined and weighted without bias.
• Stereotypes associated with jobs (e.g., barbers versus hairdressers) are eliminated.
• Different weights are used for different factors.

Selecting the correct market priced benchmark jobs for setting a salary structure can also help to avoid pay discrimination issues. Avoiding low-paid, female-dominated jobs as benchmarks can be an excellent approach towards taking steps to eliminate the gender pay gap.