Jobs and positions are evaluated in order to track the attributes necessary for an employee to perform a function (job/position) within the company. This is not the same as creating a list of the job requirements. For example, the job requirements might include “4 years of experience operating a printing press”. In contrast, the job evaluation may include items such as a danger rating, a chemical safety rating, a physical effort rating, or a leadership rating.

Jobs and positions are evaluated without considering the people in the job/position. The evaluation does not change based on the experience or background of one particular employee.

Within the system, the attributes used are called “evaluation categories”. These categories may be created by the organization, or may be categories defined in an outside product, such as the HAY system. 

Examples of categories that a company may define are: 
danger-chemicals
danger-fire
danger-equipment
supervise others

After the categories are defined, individual jobs/positions are evaluated by rating each applicable category. These ratings may be subjective, i.e. “high”, “low”, or may be quantified with a point system. The point system allows jobs/positions to be compared to each other in a simple manner. 

The points are also used by the system if you have chosen to use Wage Range rules based on the “by formula” method.