The Factor Comparison Method

Under this system, jobs are evaluated by means of standard yard sticks of value. It entails deciding which jobs have more of certain compensable factors than others. Here, the analyst or the Evaluation Committee selects some ‘key’ or ‘benchmark’ jobs for which there are clearly understood job descriptions and counterparts in other organizations, and for which the pay rates are such as are agreed upon and are acceptable to both management and labor. Under this method, each job is ranked several times-once for each compensable factor selected. For example, jobs may be ranked first in terms of the factor ‘skill’. Then they are ranked according to their mental requirements. Next they are rank according to their ‘responsibility’, and so forth. Then these ratings and combined for each job in an over-all numerical rating for the job.

Essentials of Success of Job Evaluation Programmes

When it is finally decided to install a formal system of job evaluation irrespective of which system is decided upon, the utmost care must be exercised to ensure that human as well as technical aspects are taken into account. In order that a job evaluation system works efficiently, it is necessary that all those who are concerned with job evaluation should be fully conversant with the techniques and implications of the different available systems. Otherwise, the chances of success are doubtful. The following measures may be adopted.

(i) Supervisors should have full knowledge of the system. They should understand it, and be able to explain to their people the purpose of the plan and how it works. They must accept the desirability of the plan, for it they are not convinced that it is useful, they will certainly not be able to convince the employee.

(ii) Supervisors as a group should receive a thorough training in advance of the actual introduction of the plan to enable them to explain the policies, principles and procedures to anyone who wants to understand them. (iii) The management must give the widest publicity to every phase of the programme, utilizing employee

publications, notice boards, departmental meetings and letters to employees’ homes.

(iv) Separate pay structures should be maintained for major groups of employees. For example, it would be difficult to work out a plan equally applicable to factory workers, office workers, salesmen, and departmental heads. The wages that are offered must be at or about the prevailing rte in order that there may be a successful completion for capable people.

(v) Whatever plan or system is selected for each group will arouse some fears or apprehensions. To overcome these, the details of the administration of the plan should be as simple as possible, and the management should endeavour to involve a broad range of employees from a number of departments.

According to the findings of the International Relations Sections of the Princeton University, the following conditions are necessary for the successful operation of a job evaluation programme.

(a) It must be carefully established by ensuring that:

i. The management’s aims are clear to all concerned and that not only the manual workers but also all levels of supervision and management employees fully understand its implications; and

ii. All the relevant internal and external factors have been taken into account in arriving at the final form of the scheme.

(b) It must have the full approval and continued support and backing of the top management. (c) It must have obtained the acceptance of trade unions.

(d) Adequate administrative control must be set up to ensure: i. A centralized coordination of the scheme; ii. The evaluation of new and changed jobs; iii. A proper control of individual rate ranges;

iv. The conduct of wage surveys to provide the necessary information about the intra-plant ranges.

(e) The importance of factors, other than job content, in wage rate determination (employment market conditions, sex, wage differentials, geographical wage differentials, and the relative bargaining power of the management and the trade union) must be recognized and taken into consideration while launching a job evaluation programme.

(f) Before launching a job evaluation programme certain issues should be decided beforehand. There are:

i. Which category of employees are to be covered (i.e., whether hourly padi job or salaried job employees) and upto what range?

ii. Who will evaluate a job – outside consultants or trade analysts or the personnel of the personnel department?

iii. How will the employees be consulted in regard to the method of putting the programme through? and

iv. Does a proper atmosphere exist for launching of the programme? Some Suggestions

We suggest the following measures and steps for improving the working of evaluations programmes.

1. A job evaluation scheme should be chosen cautiously. It should be devised and administered with due regard to the conditions of the employment market, which cannot be ignored if the scheme is to be successful. It should, therefore, reflect those forces which are important in the market, e.g., relative supply of and demand for labour, bargaining power of the parties and job conditions.

2. The details of a scheme should be drawn up in such a way that they do not conflict with other provisions of Collective Agreement such as, for example, seniority clauses and grievances procedure.

3. The scheme should be introduced on a plant-to-plant basis than applied to a whole industry. This is because it is difficult to standardize jobs throughout an industry unless the plants in it are so familiar that they can be treated as being virtually a single firm.

4. The scheme should be sold to all concerned and suggestions sought. If the workers in a plant are unionized, it is highly desirable that any scheme adopted should be agreed to and, if possible, developed jointly by the company and the trade unions.

5. It is of major importance that the number of job titles and classifications be kept to a minimum. If they are not, a scheme becomes too inflexible because of the narrow covered of he job descriptions. Promotions within a grade become more serious. Moreover, workers tend to feel more insecure and cling to their present jobs because they may not have the qualification for another job.

6. Any anticipated changes in methods should be carried out before a scheme is installed and all modifications in it should be resisted until it becomes fully established.

7. In preparing job descriptions it is sound practice to emphasize in the them the things which make on job different from another rather than to find a comprehensive statement all the duties of the jobs.

8. A scheme which provides for single rates and for definite ratios between the rates for classes of workers (A, B, C, etc.) within a job grade is easier to administer than one which establishes rate ranges and has no fixed ratios.

9. A scheme is better administered by the Individual Relations staff of a company than by the Industrial Engineers who may have developed it. The essence of successful administration of a scheme is flexibility, and this is better understood by those engaged in industrial relations work than Industrial Engineers.

10. The better the state of industrial relations the easier it is to introduce a job evaluation scheme. Wage differentials arise because of the following factors:

(a) Differences in the efficiency of the labor, which may be due to inborn quality, educations, and conditions under which work may be done.

(b) The existence of non-competing groups due to difficulties in the way of the mobility of labour from low paid to high paid employments.

(c) Differences in the agreeableness or social esteem of employment. (d) Differences in the nature of employment and occupations.

The nature and the extent of wage differentials are conditioned by a set of factors such as the conditions prevailing in the market, the extent of unionization and the relative bargaining power of the employers and workers, the rate of growth in productivity, the extent of authoritarian regulations and the centralization of decision-making, customs and traditions, the general economic, industrials and social conditions in a country and a host of other subject and objective factors operating at various levels. The prevailing rates of wages, the capacity of an industry to pay, the needs of an industry in a developing economy, and the requirements of social justice also directly or indirectly affect wage differentials.

Wage Differentials in India

Due to the paucity of relevant data on wage differentials, it is not possible to analyze them in India; yet the main features of the Indian wage structure may be stated thus: “As a characteristic of the unorganized labour market, personal differentials because of job selling, individual bargaining and wage discrimination have tended to persist in India, especially in the unorganized sector of economy, and even in the organized and unorganized sections in industry.”

The tendency appears to be towards the elimination of wage differentials because of government interference through the fixation of the minimum wages and, of late, through the appointment of Wage Boards and pressures from trade unions. Wage differentials by sex are quite common. Both economic and social reasons account for this phenomenon. Despite the fact the Constitution of India enjoins upon the State to direct its policy towards securing “equal pay for equal work” for men and women, awards of some industrial Tribunals provide for “different wages for men an women workers, not on the ground that the work done is unequal but on the ground that the wages of women workers support a smaller family, that the cost of employing women workers is higher.”

As regards inter-firm and inter-industry differentials in India, the former were quite important and frequent in the past, particularly in the jute mill industry. Of late, however, there has been a tendency towards the elimination of inter-firm differentials. The forces which tend to eliminate inter-personal differentials in the country operate in this case as well.

UNIT – V

Employee Maintenance and Integration – Welfare and safety – Accident prevention – Administration of discipline – Employee motivation – Need and measures

EMPLOYEE MAINTENANCE AND INTEGRATION