Conducting the job evaluation (micro-organisations)

The graduated factor comparison method provides a simple approach in order to determine the relative value of jobs in very small organisations. This is useful where the recommended standard approach as set out in Tool 5 is not feasible.

To carry out the graduated factor comparison, you assess each job in your organisation using the factor and subfactor plan, which covers skills, responsibility, effort and working conditions. Each factor is broken down into subfactors with different levels of complexity (from 0 to 5). In this method, all subfactors have equal importance.

Choose all or some of the subfactors that best fit your organisation and assign a level for each job. This helps you compare jobs fairly, using the same criteria for all. When you add up the scores, you will get a clear ranking of jobs based on their overall demands.

Because this method relies heavily on the judgement and decisions of the job evaluator(s), it is important to look out for implicit gender biases that may creep in during the process.

This stage consists of seven steps:

  1. Understand the graduated factor comparison method and the factor and subfactor plan
  2. Select the subfactors
  3. Evaluate job roles against the selected subfactors
  4. Add up the results
  5. Check for gender bias
  6. Create a simple pay structure
  7. Check complementary or variable components of pay, if any

Downloads

For more detailed guidance, download the step-by-step toolkit and check Tool 3.

EU-wide guidelines on gender-neutral job evaluation and classification: Step-by-step toolkit

Factor and subfactor plan