After each job is rated and given a certain number of "points" for each requirement, the points are added to an overall "score" for each job. These scores are then weighted based on the importance assigned to a particular job attribute. Each job is given a total number of points based on all of the appropriate factors to compare the value of the different jobs to the company. These composite scores are then used to rank jobs to help determine appropriate wages (Blau & Ferber, 1986). This allows for comparison of wages paid for jobs with very different, but comparable, content. As well as considering the training and work requirements for jobs within the company, job evaluation systems often also take into account any available information on prevailing wages for different types of work. The use of job evaluation is neither new nor unusual, and job evaluation is now often used to determine pay scales by governments and many companies. Job evaluations are mainly used when employers cannot rely on the market to set wages.(See Spilerman, 1986, for a discussion of the types of
whatsapp group philippines organizations that determine wages based on nonmarket mechanisms.) Employers must determine wages, for example, when positions are filled entirely within an organizational unit (e.g., by promotion from an existing workforce) or when they fill positions that are unique to a particular firm. In these cases, "going rates" for all jobs are not always available in local labor markets.
There are at least two critical limitations to using job evaluation methods to establish comparable worth. First, it is difficult to eliminate the effects of past practices in identifying and weighting important job characteristics. Existing job evaluation schemes have been criticized for undervaluing, or even failing to take into account, the skills and abilities that are emphasized in some female jobs (Beatty & Beatty, 1984; Stienberg, 1992). For example, at one point, coding in the job evaluation system used in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles rated the primarily male occupation “Kennel Attendant” as requiring a higher level of complexity with respect to working with data, people, and things than the primarily female occupations of “Nursery Teacher” and “Practical Nurse,” which were rated as having minimal or no relationship to data, people, or things (Miller et al. 1980). Second, because job evaluation methods are used within a particular firm or organization, they do not address wage inequalities across firms or organizations.