ISOS: A job evaluation system to implement comparable worth

Abstract

A fair pay structure is an essential element of the personnel policy of a firm. If the pay structure is perceived as arbitrary by the members of the staff, it becomes a cause of disturbance of the labor relations. Particularly, a pay structure is unfair if it discriminates against women. Job evaluation is a traditional tool used by companies to assist in the process of determining pay structures that can be also useful to detect and combat wage discrimination, since allow determining whether two jobs are of comparable worth or not. Although there are many kinds of systems, authors agree when defining point factor methods as the most appropriate and fair job evaluation systems. However, even being well defined from a technical point of view, most existing systems give discriminatory results regarding to gender. ISOS, a new job evaluation system which is described in this paper, has been designed, with the aim to define a neutral system with regard to gender, based on present jobs characteristics, existing job evaluation systems and job description questionnaires, international experts’ knowledge and a wide body of literature on gender discrimination and its relation with job evaluation. Using ISOS can contribute to detect, combat and eliminate part of the existing wage discrimination in general and, in particular, against women. ISOS includes all aspects of the work so no characteristics are omitted. The system can be applied in any company and to evaluate any job, and offers flexibility to be adapted to the specific characteristics of an organization. ISOS can also be used to detect and combat wage discrimination. Furthermore, characteristics of present jobs, such as cross-training or flexible working time, are also included so the system can be considered innovative in a very traditional field of industrial engineering.