HR MANAGEMENT - Job Evaluation Principles & Techniques

Job Evaluation Principles & Techniques

by Arnold Anderson, Demand Media

A job evaluation can be an interactive process where the manager and the employee discuss the evolution of the employee's job duties. A job evaluation clarifies for the employee the execution and evaluation of job tasks. When you apply proper job appraisal techniques, you maintain and build upon the principles upon which a job evaluation is founded.

Job Duties

A guiding principle of job evaluations is to maintain an accurate job description. Managers need to have a comprehensive job description to properly evaluate employees, and employees need a detailed job description to know what is expected of them. An interview technique that preserves this principle is for the manager and employee to read the employee's job description and determine if that description is still relevant. A job description evolves through changes made based on employee experience.

Interaction

Job evaluations try to determine the individual performance of the employee and how the employee's performance affects the rest of the company. The principles of a job evaluation are as much about the employee's performance as they are about how the job itself contributes to the success of the company. During the evaluation, a manager can note how the job performed by the employee assists co-workers in doing their jobs. For example, a shipping employee with a low level of errors helps the customer service department by reducing customer complaints.

Uniformity

The job evaluation needs to be uniform to be fair to employees and useful to the company. For example, using a numbered evaluation system for ranking employee performance allows employees to be judged using the same criteria and then compared to each other. This sort of uniform evaluation allows the employees and the company to see what parts of employee performance need improvement. It also helps the company to identify more productive employees to assign to important projects or to be singled out for management training.

Communication

Communication in a job evaluation evaluates the different levels of interaction specific to a job classification. For example, a production worker may only need to communicate with his co-workers and supervisor, but a payroll employee communicates with co-workers, managers and executives. The evaluation of the employee can judge how well he communicates at various levels and can determine if communication needs to be expanded or more focused to be more productive. For example, job appraisals may determine that basic payroll clerks do not need to communicate directly with executives to do their jobs. In fact, communicating with executives slows down the production of a basic payroll clerk. You would then remove that level of communication from the job description.