When Job Descriptions are Linked to Pay

When job descriptions are linked to pay, all sorts of things can happen... like creative writing.

A particular type of document is needed for compensation decisions.  More than a list of recruiting specifications, it should not be as detailed as an internal set of task instructions for daily procedures.  But it does require cautious attention because it is important.  Please read this carefully. 

The documentation of job-required skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions is necessary for lawful pay decisions.  The kinds of standard generic job descriptions used for market survey benchmarking purposes are rarely suitable for proper internal pay classification; a customized version is needed.  Also, formal job evaluation systems may require decisions about specific work value criteria that can be obscure or difficult to identify. 

Facility in using words becomes vital.  However, compensation professionals are traditionally more comfortable dealing with numbers than struggling with the intricacies of the English language.  Therefore, problems can arise when reviewing proposed positions like the following, which has been abbreviated for presentation convenience:

Memorandum for Pay Classification by Compensation Department

Proposal for new position titled Director of Logistics, Transportation Applications

Without direct or intermediate supervision and with broad latitude for independent judgement and discretion, the incumbent directs, controls and regulates the movement of interstate commerce…

1. Applying personal judgment founded on past experience, modified by training and disciplined by mental concentration, the incumbent integrates the variable factors in an evolving environment, cogitating simultaneous with multiple inputs to formulate a binding decision relative to the priority of directional movement… rendering irreversible decisions not subject to review by any higher authority…
2. The incumbent’s decisions are important because they affect with great finality the movement of a wide variety of valuable products, including…
3. To effectively implement these vital responsibilities, the incumbent must exercise initiative, ingenuity, imagination, intelligence and discerning versatility… and must be able to deal effectively with all personality types at all levels of education…
4. An erroneous judgment or a failure to properly appraise the nuance of an unfolding development could create a disaster generating immense loss…

(In short, on highway construction projects where only one-way traffic is possible, this incumbent holds up signs and tells which vehicle can proceed and which must halt.)

This is a classic example of the lengths some managers will go to in order to justify higher pay for their subordinates and a larger payroll for them to allocate.  A longer version of this was published thirty years ago, yet we still see such ambitious submissions today.  Similarly exaggerated documents give a false picture of actual work content and create misleading impressions of job value.  Unfortunately, many pay classification systems encourage verbal manipulations.  Some programs even require such literary trickery to produce a job evaluation that permits proper pay. 

Fancy deceptive wordplay might be useful for advertising but imaginative fiction has no place in compensation.  Nevertheless, be prepared for ingratitude after announcing any classification decision based on a puffed-up position description.  No one will appreciate whatever we do.  HR will get no thanks if the desired pay is approved but will be blamed if a successful fraud is exposed later; and the compensation cop will be named the villain if inflated work value claims are rejected, too. 

We all have better things to do, but the vital linkage of job descriptions to pay is too important to ignore.  Hard to do that, when presented with odious examples like this, isn’t it? 

E. James (Jim) Brennan is an independent consultant with extensive total rewards experience, specializing in job evaluation, market pricing and pay budget distribution.  After HR corporate jobs in chemical/pharmaceutical manufacturing, he consulted at retail, government, energy, IT, tax-exempt and other industries throughout North America before becoming Senior Associate of pay survey software publisher ERI until 2015.  A prolific writer (author of the Performance Management Workbook) and speaker, he gave expert witness testimony in many reasonable executive compensation cases both for and against the Internal Revenue Service.  Jim also serves on the Advisory Board of the Compensation and Benefits Review.

Image courtesy of eremedia.com

Comments

[Tony Bergmann-Porter]

Short version: It's a good idea to have a graybeard with a well-calibrated bullsh#t detector on your staff.

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

A gray-haired veteran of either sex is always happy to have a handy reference article available for citation, Tony. It is much safer and more effective than pitting their personal opinion against a powerful executive's crazy idea. A statement from an outside objective authority is quite useful to back up their otherwise unsupported claim that the scent in the air comes from cow patties rather than roses.