Job Evaluation
Job evaluation provides a formal framework to determine the hierarchy of positions within the organization with objectivity and consistency.
Total Compensation administers job evaluation plans for Management and Confidential (MAC) and OPSEU positions to assess the relationship of these jobs within the university, and to establish and maintain internal equity, pay equity and fair compensation.
The key situations that require a job evaluation are:
- the creation of a new position;
- operational changes resulting in significant changes in an existing job that impact scope and complexity of responsibilities.
Job evaluation process steps
- Direct supervisor/leader determines the need for operational changes. Through consultation with their human resources partner, establishes that a job evaluation is required due to significant changes to position requirements.
- Leaders need departmental budget holder’s approval to assume any financial impact that results from the creation of a new role or possible change in grade as a result of job evaluation.
- Working closely with the human resources partner, the leader defines the new role or outlines changes to an existing role and any impact on other positions.
- Support is provided to leaders by sharing benchmarks or existing similar job descriptions, which have already been evaluated and are ready for implementation. Using this method can significantly reduce turnaround time and help create consistency of job descriptions across the university.
- If there are no benchmarks or similar positions available, a total compensation specialist works with the leader to document the requirements. This results in a full evaluation with longer turnaround time.
- A total compensation specialist evaluates the position to determine the final grade as needed.
- When an evaluation is necessary, the applicable job evaluation plan is applied to ensure the consistent and equitable evaluation of the position to determine final grade level.
- The total compensation specialist provides the final job description and grade. The leader and the department head/budget holder review and approve the final job description, and the implementation of the job evaluation results.
- The leader shares the new job description and evaluation results with employees in the position. Human Resources implements the job evaluation change including any resulting salary adjustments, and distributes the final job description and related documents to leaders and employees.
(PDF file) OPSEU job evaluation plan
Interpretation manual for evaluating OPSEU positions.
(PDF file) OPSEU job family summary
Overview of OPSEU job families.
(PDF file) MAC job evaluation plan overview
Provides a summary of how we evaluate Management and Confidential (MAC) positions.
Frequently asked questions
Job evaluation is an objective method used to determine the minimum skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions required of a job based on operational needs. It does not evaluate an employee’s ability to perform the job requirements. Job evaluation is used for OPSEU and MAC positions to determine grade and pay level.
The evaluation of positions is the responsibility of the total compensation unit in HR, working closely with leaders to ensure the operational requirements of positions are accurately captured in job descriptions and ratings.
Job evaluation is generally required if any of the following criteria is met:
- A brand new position is created to perform a set of responsibilities that was not previously being performed.
- Significant changes are required in the responsibilities of an existing job that impact scope and complexity of responsibilities such as:
- adding or removing key responsibilities that significantly impact the nature and scope of responsibilities;
- changes representing a minimum 30% change in responsibilities, such that a third of the responsibilities have been replaced or removed.
- This may include:
- assuming a higher or lower level of decision making authority than previously exercised.
- changes in organizational hierarchy/structure.
- adding or removing senior level staff reporting into the position.
Job evaluation is generally not required when small changes are made to an existing job description that do not significantly impact the nature and scope of responsibilities, as confirmed by Total Compensation. These small changes may include:
- Changes to the assigned responsibilities are minor, ie. less than a third of the responsibilities assigned have changed.
- Changes in frequency of occurrence or time spent on certain responsibilities.
- Performing the same set of responsibilities with different tools or systems.
- Updates to qualifications or to the area of expertise without changing the level of education required. For example, post-secondary degree in English changed to post-secondary degree in Journalism.
- Changes to the type of experience without changing the years of experience.
- Changes in any identification related to the position, such as department name, position title or change in reporting relationships.
- Adding a new position number to an existing evaluated job description.
For the evaluation to begin, a leader must provide:
- Information to confirm the criteria required for a job review has been met (i.e. outline of a significant change in responsibilities, the creation of a new role).
- If the role is not new, clear identification of what has changed in the role (i.e. new or removed responsibilities).
- A job description that is already evaluated, and closely reflects the requirements such as a benchmark job description, or a similar job description already in place, identified based on working with the human resources partner and total compensation.
- In the absence of a benchmark or existing job description, leaders will be asked to provide a new job description describing the requirements of the role.
- Budget holder’s approval to assume any financial impact that results from the creation of a new role or possible change in grade as a result of job evaluation.
Job evaluation is about the role, not the employee. It is not meant for employee specific concerns or issues. It will not address the following situations:
- Concerns related to performance or employee conduct.
- Providing a salary adjustment to an employee.
- Address retention concerns.
- Providing career progression opportunities to employees.
- Setting specific expectations for an employee.
- Increase in work volume related to the responsibilities.
To identify the appropriate process to address these issues please contact your HR Partner.