A Comparison of Factor Weighting Methods in Job Evaluation: Implications for Compensation Systems

Abstract

Job evaluation has received a great deal of attention recently, in part because of its potential role in the gender-related pay equity issue. Investigators have been particularly interested in such psychometric characteristics of job evaluation instruments and plans such as reliability, gender bias, construct validity, and predictive accuracy. One aspect of job evaluation meth odology that could directly affect compensation systems is the weighting of factors in scoring jobs. However, very little information exists in the compensation literature about the differ ential effects of alternative weighting methods or the psychometric parameters that may contribute to such differences. The present article reviews past psychometric research related to weighting, and presents evidence of the salary effects of four different weighting methods examined in an applied job evaluation setting. The study sample consisted of 52 jobs in a municipal government. The four weighting methods were: (1) an unweighted raw score composite, (2) equal unit weights, (3) committee-judgmental weights, and (4) multiple regression weights. Results indicated high agreement among the 4 methods in terms of ordinal rankings of the pay rates for the 52 jobs. However, when jobs were classified into pay grades using the alternative weighting models, distinct differences occurred. Particularly relevant was a finding that the weighting models differed in their relative impact on male and female dominated jobs. The article discusses generalizability issues and recommendations to practitioners concerning weighting methodology in job evaluation projects.

A fuzzy multi-criteria approach to point-factor method for job evaluation

“…The evaluation of the jobs derives from a multi-attribute value system in this method [39]. The typical factors employed for the point-factor method are majorly categorized as skills, responsibilities, effort, and working conditions which were specified in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 [16].…”

“…Spyridakos et al (2001) develop a model that determine the weights of the levels for each factor by using a value function and applied the model to evaluate the jobs in a big scale company [39]. Davis and Sauser (1993) compare four weighting methods; an unweighted raw score composite, equal unit weights, committee judgmental weights and multiple regression weights [16]. The results show that the weighting methods differed in their relative impact on the male and female dominated jobs.…”

Comparison of Job Evaluation Methods: Implications for the Salaries Design in Publishing Company

“…Study from [22] compared different weighting methods. The payment rating was ranked, and the order of 52 job samples in the study was the same for all of the weighting method.…”

Weighted Staffing Plans for Better Prediction of Staffing Needs

“…28 Weights may be determined a priori and then applied to a model or can be derived empirically. 29 When modeling and analyzing data where there is a measure of uncertainty, the uncertainty can be expressed by using a weight. 30 Both patient acuity and patient turnover add uncertainty to the hours ultimately worked and were thus configured through a series of trial and error to derive the weight that was used to adjust WHPPD (Figure 2).…”