Job Evaluation – A Guide to Achieving Equal Pay
Authors: Michael Armstrong, Ann Cummins, Sue Hastings and Willie Wood
Price: £16.99
Pages: 220
Publisher: Kogan Page
ISBN: 0 7494 4481 9
This claims to be the first book on job evaluation to focus on equal value issues. The guide covers and compares the features of job evaluation, looking at both analytical and non-analytical schemes.
Early on in the book, it says that “case law only requires that the scheme should be analytical” – for the practitioner, it would be more than helpful if the authors had cited the case in question. Later in the book, case law is cited correctly, which makes it all the more confusing that it has been omitted elsewhere.
Some parts of the book go into great depth – more than the normal practitioner would need, but enough for examination candidates to find helpful.
But it is not an easy read. You tend to look for a simple scheme design and implementation strategy. However, it does not exist, and the reader is left wallowing in the morass of review, project planning and even consider-ation of computer-based job evaluation.
Consequently, this book could act as a deterrent to any practitioner without a considerable number of support staff. If a reader followed the implementation of a scheme as advocated in this book, it would be likely to take up an enormous amount of time.
A truism is that no equal pay audit can effectively be carried out without some form of job comparison. After reading this book, the hope is that there are more pragmatic approaches out there.
The four authors leave the reader more than a little confused – perhaps this is the problem with ‘committee’ authorship. Job evaluation and equal pay are both laudable aims, but missed targets with this book.
Useful? Three stars
Well-written? Two stars
Practical? Three stars
Inspirational? Two stars
Value for money? Three stars
Overall Two stars
Reviewed by Ron Hancock, bursar and clerk to the governors, Bradford Grammar School
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