Why your job evaluation process is undermining trust

Having a transparent approach to job evaluation in the workplace helps to develop trust in an organisation.

We live in a world where employees have instant access to salary data through a quick Google search.

Yet many organisations still rely on job evaluation processes that are so complex, even HR teams struggle to explain how they work.

Not having a simple approach to job evaluation undermines trust and transparency in organisations.

Even where companies have established job levelling or grading structures, employees often have no idea how their role was slotted into a particular level or why they were assigned a specific grade.

This disconnect occurs because job evaluation typically happens behind the scenes, managed exclusively by HR teams using:

Online proprietary tools
Approaches that require specific certification (like HAY)
Technical frameworks inaccessible to the average employee

Even if HR professionals wanted to explain the process, they often can't share this information with employees due to the complexity or licensing restrictions of these systems.

Too complex for its own good

Traditional job evaluation processes tend to be overly complex and highly technical.

They frequently include numerous factors and subfactors, each with its own weighting, which means organisations must rely on specialised tools to carry out evaluations.

This creates several problems:

Only a handful of individuals have access to the evaluation tools due to cost constraints
The process requires extensive training and sometimes certification
The technical nature limits accessibility and transparency
Employees are left in the dark about how their roles are valued

Benefits of a bespoke job evaluation process

A job evaluation process that is developed specifically for your organisation can have many benefits.

This is because they:

Use simple language that employees will understand
Employ terminology relevant to your organisation (e.g., "colleagues" vs "staff")
Reflect the types of roles that exist in your organisation
Weigh factors according to what matters in your business context

For example, financial responsibility might be crucial in one organisation but less relevant in another.

Having a job evaluation process that is tailored to the types of roles in your organisation demonstrates fairness more effectively.

This is often challenging with off-the-shelf job evaluation processes used in salary surveys, as they rely on generic language to accommodate thousands of different organisations.

While these generic frameworks can be useful as a starting point, organisations that truly want to build trust need a bespoke approach.

Here's why:

Enhanced trust and transparency

When employees understand how their roles are evaluated, they're more likely to trust the resulting pay decisions.

A custom framework using clear language relevant to your organisation helps everyone see how decisions are made.

Fair and defensible pay decisions

A bespoke process allows you to create evaluation criteria that accurately reflect your organisational structure as well as what's truly important in your business context.

This makes pay decisions fairer and more defensible.

Simplified manager communications

When your job evaluation system uses language that resonates within your organisation, managers find it easier to have meaningful conversations about pay with their teams.

Improved pay equity

Generic systems might miss nuances in how different roles contribute value.

A tailored approach ensures you're comparing roles appropriately, helping to address potential pay inequities.

Legal considerations

While we're focusing on demonstrating fairness to employees, it's also important to ensure your job evaluation process is compliant with the Equality Act 2010 and principles of equal pay for work of equal value.

This means your process must be:

Objective
Gender-neutral
Consistently applied

The challenge is finding the balance between legal compliance and creating a system that's clear and simple enough to be truly beneficial rather than just another HR process.

Moving forward

A transparent job evaluation process is essential for building trust around pay decisions.

By creating a system that employees can understand and that reflects your unique needs, you can demonstrate fairness while still maintaining necessary rigour.

The journey to developing such a system starts with defining your reward strategy and principles, then tailoring an approach that works for your specific structure.

Rather than relying on off-the-shelf solutions that few people understand, consider developing a bespoke approach that can be clearly communicated throughout your organisation.