JOB EVALUATION

Abstract

Job evaluation developed out of civil service classification practices and some early employer job and pay classification systems. Whether formal job evaluation began with the United States Civil Service Commission in 1871 or with Frederick W. Taylor in 1881, it is now over 120 years old and still of great value. The first point system was developed in the 1920s. Employer associations have contributed greatly to the adoption of certain plans. The spread of unionism has influenced the installation of job evaluation in that employers gave more attention to rationalized wage structures as unionism advanced. During World War II, the National War Labour Board encouraged the expansion of job evaluation as a method of reducing wage inequities. As organizations became larger and larger and more bureaucratized the need for a rational system of paying employees became evident. Wage structures became more complex and needed some way to bring order to the chaos perpetuated by supervisors setting pay rates for their employees on their own. Job evaluation became a major part of the answer. The techniques and processes of job evaluation were developed and perfected during this time period of the late 1950s. With the advent of the Civil Rights movement, job evaluation literally got written into the law. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 required jobs to be compared on the basis of skill, effort, and responsibility to determine if they were or were not equal. A 1979 study of job evaluation, as a potential source of and/or a potential solution to sex discrimination in pay, was made by the National Research Council under a contract.