LOCAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES JOB EVALUATION SCHEME:

TECHNICAL NOTE NO. 7: SKILLS PATHWAYS AND CAREER GRADES & JOB EVALUATION

1. Background

1.1 Career Grades represent a basis for progression within or through a grade structure or hierarchy. They are generally associated with professions or careers within which the acquisition of competence and skills adds to the employee's potential to contribute to the organisation.

1.2 Career Grades have tended to occur historically in those areas where local authorities were major employers and training providers, for example, highways engineering, town and country planning, but in more recent times they have also been found in other areas, such as social services.

2. General

2.1 Career grades are one way to encourage recruitment as they can help a potential employee see a career or personal development path which they might reasonably expect to progress along. They are an overt commitment to the development of the individual and, if delivered, can encourage retention and commitment.

2.2 They set out openly what is expected of both the employer and the employee. It is essential that any grades/schemes are deliverable. In order to ensure that a career grade system works it is important to ensure there are realistic opportunities to progress to the higher level. Otherwise unrealisable expectations are raised, which if undelivered, would lead to loss of motivation and morale rather than encourage increased contribution and retention.

2.3 It is important to manage and monitor the operation of career grades not only for equality reasons but also cost reasons, otherwise the authority may be paying unnecessarily for skills and knowledge not required to do the job and to deliver the service.

3. General Equalities Considerations

3.1 It is important that the establishment and application of career grades are closely and regularly monitored to avoid discrimination, especially by gender and ethnicity, including:

4. Equality of Access

4.1 Ensure that there is equality of access to the career grades otherwise discrimination may exist, as was the case with manual worker bonuses, which in general were only accessible by men and not women.

5. Check

5.1 Are the career grades open to all employees with the required entry skills and knowledge, irrespective of gender, race, disability and age? Are the career grades assigned to occupations that are dominated by one gender or by different genders - or are they for occupations that are gender neutral? If they are dominated by one gender it is essential that there is an objective reason for this. Ideally, career grades would be open to all occupations where there is an identifiable structure.

6. Equality of Operation

6.1 It is important that the career grades for different occupations are operated in a consistent non-discriminatory way, especially if they are currently dominated by one gender.

6.2 Check that the take-up of career grades is equal by gender, ethnicity, age, full and part-time status.

6.3 Ensure that the levels - and movement between levels - are neither based on length of service nor qualifications achieved without them being required by the job being done. If they are based on either of the above and cannot be objectively justified, then the operation of the scheme, all other things being equal, may be discriminatory.

7. Job Evaluation Equalities Considerations

7.1 Job evaluation evaluates jobs and not individuals. The key way to ensure equality in the establishment and operation of career grades is to construct them on the basis of the job evaluation scores for jobs that have been evaluated. Thus it is the knowledge and the skills required to do the job which is measured and not that which an individual employee may happen to have.

7.2 A career grade may be viewed as a series of jobs with different levels of job demands and responsibilities, often requiring different knowledge and skill levels. It is expected that a number of jobs in the career grade would score different numbers of points under a job evaluation scheme and that a number would fall in different grades in the job evaluated grading structure.

7.3 For example, it could be that in social services and architectural services there are jobs within the respective occupational groups up to managerial level that have been graded on the basis of the JE scores, on 5 different grades. Job profiles - in terms of knowledge and skills, responsibilities and demands - could then be drawn up based on these. They would then form the basis of the steps to be achieved at the various levels in the career grade structure and would define what needs to be achieved to move up the career grade, generally in terms of additional knowledge and commensurate additional responsibilities.

7.4 Movement within a career grade should be based on job requirements and not the personal attributes and achievements of the individual; ie. the individual must be performing the job for the grade in which they are being paid. Significant steps within career grades should be identified along with any training to progress and access to training should be made available to all groups.

TECH NOTE 7 JUNE 2005

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