Wage Consistency in the Context of Job Evaluation: An Analytical View

Consistent pay for employees is as important an issue as it is a complex one. It is important, for it is a necessary requirement for getting employees' acceptance and satisfaction and as a factor of motivation at work for better performance. Thus, pay consistency is more complex than what the unspecialized person may think. It needs conceptual skill and digestion to understand the meaning and roles of its key concepts and the forces related to those concepts. Terms such as fairness, equity, job relativities, and relative pay in relation to internal - external forces of consistency are all examples of such concepts. It is a technical process relating to moral and ethical issues regarding, again, such factors as fairness and equity. All this is in order to get an appropriate assessment of the job's importance for the organization concerned. Importantly, job evaluation philosophy and concept are based on a wage - to - job (job content / job demand) principle rather than upon a wage - to - job holder / work performer's characteristics. Therefore, the focus concentrates upon the internal relativities / internal hierarchical value of jobs in order to reach a fair and acceptable evaluation. This in turn decides the internal job pricing and not the final (or actual) wage identified for each job. This latter process is far more complex. It refers to the creation and implementation of an overall wage structure where job evaluation is only one of the important tools used with others including such initiatives as wage market surveys and wage curves.