Job evaluation is a technique used to determine the value of each job in relation to all jobs within the organization. Its main objective is to determine the relative worth of different jobs in an organization to serve as a basis for developing rational wages and salary structure.
Like any other technique of human resource management, job evaluation is not free from certain shortcomings and limitations. Various practical problems in using job evaluation technique may be grouped into two categories: technical and operational.
1. Technical Problems
There are some technical problems involved in effective job evaluation which are of the following nature.
- Job evaluation establishes hierarchy of jobs based on their worth. Though there are various methods developed for this purpose. These are not completely objective.
- Another problem in establishing job hierarchy through job evaluation comes in the form of changing profile of job factors because of changes in environmental variables such as technology, social structure and processes and international impact. Therefore, a job hierarchy which may be workable at one point of time may not work at another point of time. Thus, in order to make job evaluation effective. it should be undertaken at regular intervals.
- Job evaluation is a costly and technical exercise. Therefore, many organisations do not prefer to take it in a formal way. Rather, they prefer to go through prevailing practices.
2. Operational Problems
Besides the technical problems, there are some operational problems too in job evaluation. These are of the following types:
- Linking jobs, based on job evaluation, and wages and salaries is not completely possible because of the operation of several forces in the environment. There are substantial differences between job factors and the factors emphasized by the human resource market. Often it has been observed that these external factors change with the time.
- Job hierarchy created through job evaluation may create human problems in an organisation particularly if it has been taken for the first time and results into fundamental differences as compared to the existing system. In such a situation, job evaluation may face resistance from the employees.
- Job evaluation is, generally, suited to large organisations where human resource management system has been formalized. In comparatively smaller organizations, this may not result in much advantages.
The existence of various problems in job evaluation does not mean that it should not be undertaken. In fact, this should be undertaken. The problems identified above indicate that suitable safeguards should be provided while undertaking job evaluation to make it more productive.