Job Evaluations

• Job evaluations study jobs, not the people doing them. According to the Hay Group, pioneers in job evaluation, the process of evaluating jobs ensures that compensation throughout an organization is fair and consistent. Compensation analysts translate the tasks of a job, as noted in the job description, into factors deemed necessary to do the work. Many firms opt to use the four factors established by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2004 for its National Compensation Survey: responsibilities, skill, effort and working conditions. The evaluation then assigns each factor a numeric weight. The total of all the weighted factors determines the job's pay grade. Pay grades present minimum and maximum pay rates within a range. Jobs are reevaluated when their primary duties change in scope or complexity.
  
  

Performance Appraisal

• Performance appraisals have several names: "employee evaluations," "performance evaluations" and "annual reviews." All refer to the formal process of providing employees and supervisors with feedback on how well they did their jobs. Performance appraisals usually take place annually, although best practices include quarterly reviews. Consultant and performance appraisal expert Richard C. Grote includes training, staff development, recruitment, merit pay administration and staffing decisions among additional ways organizations use performance appraisals.
  
  

Job Analysis

• The job analysis links job evaluations to performance appraisals. HR managers conduct an analysis of a job in order to write the job's specifications, that part of the job description which lists the knowledge, competencies, aptitudes and experience needed to perform the job. A job analysis constitutes the first step in any job evaluation.