Defense against the ‘Dark Arts’ of Job Evaluation: A Crash Course!

Let me start with a confession. I have made a living out of job evaluation – both as an external consultant (who conducts job evaluation and trains/certifies the client team on job evaluation) and as an internal process owner. I have had the opportunity to get trained/certified in three different job evaluation methodologies and practice two of them extensively. Job Evaluation can be a very useful tool to establish the relative size of jobs in a systematic manner and this can serve as an input to various processes like organization design, job banding, rewards, career pathing, talent movements etc.

Now, the question is “why would anyone need to defend against such a useful thing?”. It is because job evaluation requires the investment of time and money and because one can be at the ‘receiving end’ of job evaluation as a Business Leader, HR Business Partner, People Manager or as an employee – when job evaluation becomes more of a hassle than a help. For a Business Leader who values flexibility job evaluation can comes an unnecessary hurdle to pass (See Paradox of HR Systems for a related discussion). In such a case, the business leader might just take a decision on the grade fitment of an employee and ask the HR Business Partner to ‘push it through the HR system’ somehow. Similarly, for a manager (who is trying to keep an employee motivated by providing vertical career growth) or for an employee (who looking for a promotion), job evaluation can become a serious impediment to what one wants to achieve.

Job evaluation is not an exact science. While the job evaluation providers might claim that their methodology has been successfully applied across countries and industry sectors, it is indeed possible that a particular methodology (especially one with fixed factors and factor weightages - most of the popular job evaluation methodologies fall into this category) favors certain types of jobs. This can lead to situations where the job evaluation scores don't accurately reflect the contribution various jobs make to a particular organization. It has been argued that job evaluation is a 'rationalized institutional myth' - 'rationalized' because it has a clearly articulated methodology and a 'myth' because it is accepted as true because it is believed.

Job evaluation involves a significant amount of judgement (which can be subjective, even when guided by a well-defined framework and quality checks). In a way, job evaluation is more of a ‘negotiated agreement’. In such a situation, if one doesn’t have political power, one might be at a significant disadvantage as compared to people who have such power. In extreme circumstances, job evaluation can become a tool for ‘powerplay’. Yes, there are also situations where the job evaluation process owner gets a bad name even when he/she hasn’t done anything wrong.

So, what are some of the options for defending against job evaluation? The following discussion can give you some ideas.

Avoid it if possible

 Job Evaluation takes significant time and resources. Job Evaluation makes practical sense only if the jobs are relatively stable. So, if the jobs in your unit haven’t yet stabilized, you have a good case for arguing that job evaluation shouldn’t be applied to your unit at this stage. A similar argument can be made if your operating strategy involves recasting jobs frequently (requiring frequent reevaluation of jobs which can be expensive and time consuming). Also, if job evaluation is not very commonly used by the companies in your industry segment, that can give you a good argument against the applicability of job evaluation.

 There are indeed ways to implement job evaluation in the above-mentioned contexts. It is just that it is a bit more difficult to do so and that the case is less compelling.

Create a lot of exceptions when you can

Here the idea is to be a bit generous with the grade-fitment of the employees before job evaluation becomes applicable to your unit. Sometimes, this happens automatically. For example, for a new unit that is doing a lot of hiring, this helps to attract better talent.  Once job evaluation takes place, these employees will become ‘red circled’ (exceptions where the jobholder's grade is higher than what the job is evaluated at). However, it is very unlikely that the organization will reduce the grade of an existing employee in such cases. Therefore, it continues till the employee continues on the same job. Another option here is to get a ‘powerful leader’ (competent authority) to grant exceptions – to allow an employee to be hired/fitted at a level that is higher than that indicated by the job evaluation results.  If there are a very large percentage of exceptions, it adversely impacts the credibility of job evaluation process.

Of course, these kinds of strategies can create long-term issues and inefficiencies for the unit and hence they can backfire from a long-term point of view.

Rob Peter to pay Paul but do pay Peter back with interest when Peter’s job is being evaluated

This involves shifting some of the responsibilities handled by one employee to another employee when the latter’s job is being evaluated and then more than reversing the process (by moving even more responsibilities back to the former employee) when the former’s job is being evaluated!  Yes, this can be a complicated process and lead to ‘red-circled’ employees if the job evaluation is practiced in the company in a strict manner (which involves reevaluating all the impacted jobs when there is a change in responsibilities of a particular job/when a new job is created necessitating the job evaluation). However, this takes a lot of effort to track changes and reevaluate on an ongoing basis – especially if these changes are done carefully over a period of time.

Such a complicated process is required as ‘simply inflating the responsibilities’ is unlikely to work. Job evaluation supposed to be done based on approved job descriptions and hence just being creative about the job responsibilities won’t do -unless there is no such validation/approval process for job descriptions in place. Also, job evaluation is done to-down and a job is evaluated in the context of the constellation of jobs surrounding it (especially the job of the reporting manager) and hence inflating the job responsibilities can lead to easily noticeable overlaps that serve as a red flag to the person evaluating the job. 

If you can't convince them confuse them

If the person doing the job evaluation doesn’t put in enough effort to understand the organization context and the responsibilities of the other jobs around the role being evaluated, one might have a decent chance of getting a higher job evaluation by confusing the job evaluator!

Other tricks of the trade

Positioning the job as a clear successor position to the manager’s job and arguing that the overlaps with the manager’s role are by design (because of the requirements of the particular context) might work in some cases! In most of the job evaluation methodologies, some of the factors tend to be hierarchical and hence the evaluations on those factors are constrained by the evaluation of the manager's job on the same factors). Hence, this approach is not always so easy. 

Most of the job evaluation systems work in such a way that ‘stealing responsibilities from the jobs of one’s subordinates’ won’t have any beneficial impact on the job evaluation score of one's job. Hence the attempt to steal responsibilities from one’s peers and one’s manager!

Being in the good books of the ‘job evaluation overlord’ can also be highly beneficial because of the judgement and discretion involved in job evaluation.

In lieu of a conclusion

So, where does this discussion leave us? Job evaluation, like most things in life and work-life is a mixed blessing. Job evaluation not an exact science (it is both a science and an art). It is resource intensive and can introduce rigidity into the system. However, job evaluation can serve as a very valuable input to organization design, job banding, rewards, career pathing and inter-unit talent movements.  

As we have seen above, it has been argued that job evaluation is a rationalized institutional myth. One of the key functions served by a myth is the maintenance of social order (order in the social system called the organization, in this case). In this sense, job evaluation elevates the decisions on aspects like band-fitment from the realm of 'common sense' to the realm of the ‘scientific'. It provides an explanation and justification for an organizational hierarchy that might otherwise have been difficult to explain. Job evaluation signals to the employees the notion that the current structure of inequality is right and just! Yes, organization reality is socially constructed to a large extent and maintenance of social order is very important in business organizations too!

Therefore, for an organization the key question is whether it adds net value in the particular context – considering the benefits, the cost, the effort required and the possible side effects. Of course, for an individual it is essentially a matter of whether it is a help or a hassle for him/her and hence the decision on ‘whether or not to attempt a defense against job evaluation’ is likely to depend on that (moderated by altruistic and masochistic tendencies)!

 Any comments/thoughts?

Of leadership development and articulating the unarticulated

It was Carl Jung who said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate". Something similar holds true in the case of leaders and leadership development also. 

The tacit definitions of leadership in the minds of the leaders influence how they lead. This implies that one of the important ways to enhance the effectiveness of the leaders is to enable them to identify the tacit definition of leadership they have in their minds and the impact of that definition on their actions and effectiveness as a leader. This is an aspect that doesn't get adequate attention in leadership development initiatives and hence it significantly takes away from the potential impact of initiatives like leadership development programs and leadership coaching. 

It is also useful to help the leaders understand how the idea of leadership has evolved and the possibilities offered by the newer definitions of leadership. Over the last few decades, the definition of leadership has gravitated towards a 'meaning making oriented one', as the process whereby one motivates others to contribute to the achievement of collective goals by shaping beliefs, values, and understandings rather than by controlling the behaviors through rewards and punishment. 

Humans are meaning-seeking creatures and leaders are architects or even merchants of meaning. This also means that the leaders' ability to facilitate meaning-making for their followers is a pivotal contributor to leadership effectiveness. Hence, there is a need to help the leaders to 'articulate the unarticulated definitions of leadership' that they around in their heads and to update them if required.

This also has a direct impact on leadership development. It is a good idea to have a clear understanding of what exactly one is trying to develop through leadership development! If the leadership development is attempted without paying adequate attention to the underlying definition of leadership, it can easily miss the mark. Leadership development programs often focus on the shiny surface of leadership—the concepts, models and behaviors that look great on paper—but they rarely dig into the messy, sticky, psychological goo where those tacit definitions in the minds of the leaders live. As a result, we end up with leaders who 'talk the talk' about enabling meaningfulness but 'walk the walk' of someone who's just looking for the next opportunity to dangle a carrot or wield a stick. This will make 'meaning based leadership' some sort of a 'con game'! This can also push leadership development efforts further into the realm of 'corporate rain dances'.  

Let's take a closer look at these tacit definitions. Tacit definitions of leadership are the deeply ingrained beliefs, assumptions, and perceptions that individuals hold about what constitutes good leadership - 'on what good looks like'. These definitions are often shaped by personal experiences, cultural backgrounds, organization context and even collective delusions. They can significantly influence how leaders perceive their roles, interact with their teams, and make decisions. While tacit definitions of leadership can provide a valuable foundation for leaders, they can also act as blind spots, limiting their effectiveness in a changing world.  

However, surfacing, examining and modifying these tacit definitions can very difficult. This process involves reflecting on one's beliefs and assumptions, seeking feedback from others, and staying open to new ideas and perspectives. Leadership development programs can play a crucial role in helping the leaders to surface and examine their tacit definitions of leadership. 

So how exactly do we accomplish this? Leadership development needs to get more personal, delving into the shadowy recesses of leaders' minds. We need to coax out those ancient definitions, hold them up to the light, and ask, "Is this really the best we've got?" Facilitating deep self-reflection during leadership development programs and providing personalized support in terms of leadership coaching can be very helpful! Seeking feedback from the significant others at work (including the team members), who have a ringside seat to see the tacit definition of leadership playing out in terms of leadership behaviors, and, using that feedback as an input to coaching can also be very useful.

To be able to lead through meaning-making, leaders should be able to imbue goals with meanings. They should be able to provide the followers with a sense of coherence (feeling of comprehension or that actions/events fit into a pattern/make sense), purpose (feeling that the proposed actions are in line with the pursuit of larger goals that the employees consider to be valuable) and significance (the feeling that the employees and their action matter/make a difference). This requires leadership development programs to focus more on aspects like visionary leadership, leading through purpose, corporate storytelling, use of generative metaphors, social construction of reality, empathy, authentic leadership etc.  

In short, while the explicit definitions of leadership in the leadership research/leadership discourse have evolved into something that is meaning-oriented, many leaders are still unconsciously clinging to the 'carrots and sticks' of rewards and punishments to shape employee behavior at the workplace. It's time to bring those tacit definitions into the 21st century, dust them off, and maybe, replace them with something a little more enlightened. Yes, we also need to develop the enabling skills in the leaders to help them to reflect the new definitions of leadership in their behavior at the workplace. With enough work, we might create a workplace where leaders are as good at sculpting minds as they once were at doling out carrots and brandishing sticks.

Any comments?