Point evaluation methods for job classification and compensation

¶ … Interview and Analysis of Point Evaluation

A successful organization begins with the hiring of a competent, qualified and reliable staff. Hiring such a staff will depend significantly on hiring practices. This includes the methods used for recruitment, for interview and for job evaluation. It is the last of these concerns that drives the focus of the current discussion. Indeed, as I learned from my interview with the head of Human Resources in the organization that employs me, job evaluation is an essential dimension of determining the qualifications required, the experience preferred and the compensation appropriate for the different roles and responsibilities fulfilled at said company. In our discussions, the head of HR indicated that our company utilized a what he referred to as a 'point evaluation' system for conducting job evaluation.

He would tell me in our discussions that this system was a critically important instrument for assessing jobs, defining them effectively and staffing them in the most optimal way possible. According to the interviewee, the point evaluation system categorizes and quantifies the aspects of each job within a company and uses the analytics derived there from in order to make recruitment, hiring and compensation decisions. This characterization would be confirmed by subsequent research. To this end, Heathfield (2003) describes the point evaluation system as "the most widely used job evaluation method. In a point evaluation system, you express the value of a particular job in monetary terms. You first identify compensable factors that a group of jobs possess. Based on these factors, you assign points that numerically represent the description and range of the job." (Healthfield, p. 1)

This is especially important within the context of my employing organization. A company that specializes in the design of consumer goods for retail distribution in large chain and department stores, we are a modestly sized firm but one that interacts with much larger buyers. As a result, it is extremely important, the interviewee would report, to ensure the utmost in efficiency and optimization of resources. This feeds directly into the emphasis placed on job evaluation. The head of HR would indicate that the Human Resources department was primarily responsible for implementing proper job evaluation the be employed by those in the areas of recruitment and screening. Beyond the role played by HR, it was also incumbent upon the management core of each department to report to HR any concerns or feedback on the connection between job evaluation and the courtship of qualified individuals. As the interviewee would point out, in order to keep high standards in the area of personnel, it is necessary to offer competitive compensation that is commensurate to if not better than industry standards. This, however, cannot be done at the expense of the company's successful return on the investment in its various labor categories.

Our interviewee would offer some insight into the process which would correspond with available literature endorsing the point evaluation approach. Particularly, the steps described in our interview were largely consistent with those outlined in our literature. For example, just as stated by the interviewee, from the outset, it is necessary to identify what Williams (2008) calls 'clusters of jobs,' to be subjected to evaluation. It is not appropriate to evaluate different departmental roles using the same point system. Our interviewee would note that in the context of his organization, these clusters were sales jobs, production jobs, clerical jobs and supply chain jobs. Williams indicates that once job types have been divided thusly, "managers perform a job analysis, job description and job specification for each job." (Williams, p. 1) In our organization, the interviewee would state, it would fall upon the HR department to implement these tasks.