What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the simple ranking, alternate ranking, and point method job evaluation techniques?
HRA 562 DISCUSSION BOARD QUESTION
Discussion Board 4
Discussion Topic
Read the case study, Case 1: Job Evaluation at Smith Upholstery on pg. 153 of Strategic Compensation. Post your answer to the three questions.
Case 1: Job Evaluation at Smith Upholstery
Smith Upholstery has been in business since 1970. The company started out hand upholstering the seats for luxury automakers. It built a reputation of excellence. In recent years, however, many luxury automobile companies established in-house upholstering shops, leading to a reduction in business. The company’s founder, Robert Smith, anticipated these changes and actively sought contracts to upholster seats for the high-volume economy car market, using automated technology. Robert staffed the manufacturing line to oversee the operation of automated systems and troubleshoot problems that threatened to slow down the line.
Robert recognized that he needed help crafting job descriptions and job evaluation plans to help set pay rates. He hired Marco Colella following the completion of a master’s degree in human resources. Robert met Marco shortly after he began his first day of work. He reviewed priorities with Marco and Robert asked him to lead the job description and job evaluation projects. They agreed to meet at the end of the week to discuss a plan for getting this work done.
Marco met with managers to understand current staffing and job structures. Also, he discussed anticipated staffing needs. Marco used the information that he gathered and what he learned about job descriptions and job evaluation in his degree program to develop a proposal for completing this project. He crafted alternatives for conducting job evaluation, including simple ranking, alternate ranking, and point method plans; and he estimated the time it would take to complete job evaluation with each method. Finally, Marco analyzed the pros and cons of each approach. Altogether, it would take two weeks to complete job evaluation with either simple or alternate ranking techniques and two months for the point method. Taking everything into account, Marco decided that the point method would provide the best information for building internally consistent job structures. Marco submitted his plan to Robert in anticipation of their upcoming meeting.
At the start of the meeting, Robert thanked Marco for his excellent plan and for the detailed rationale and timeline for each option. Although Marco recommended using the point method, Robert instructed him to conduct the job evaluations with the simple ranking method. He also asked Marco to conduct the ratings himself rather than involving multiple raters, indicating his desire to reduce the completion time from two weeks to one week. Marco respectfully asked Robert to reconsider his decision, but he would not. Instead, Robert also assigned Marco the task of completing the company’s first affirmative action plan, which was already two weeks overdue.
Questions:
1. 6-6. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the simple ranking, alternate ranking, and point method job evaluation techniques?
2. 6-7. What problems may occur by following Robert’s approach?
3. 6-8. What do you recommen
POST 1
What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the simple ranking, alternate ranking, and point method job evaluation techniques?
There are some advantages and disadvantages to the job evaluation techniques. Point method is the one that Marco recommended. The point method is a quantitative method which provides the overall value of the job after considering compensable factors that describe the job (Martocchio, 2020). This is basically a point scale and I feel that it is an effective way to have jobs evaluated fairly. Some advantages of using the point method are that the value of the job is expressed in monetary terms, can be applied to a wide range of jobs, and can be applied to newly created jobs (Job Evaluation: Point Method). Since the positions at Smith Upholstery are newly created ones, the point method could be a good approach. This is the approach that Marco recommended. However, there are some disadvantages to the point method which are that the pay for each factor is based on judgments that are subjective and the standard used for determining the pay for each factor may have built-in biases that would affect certain groups of employees (Job Evaluation: Point Method). In this case another disadvantage was that it would take a long time to complete. It seems that Robert would like the task completed as soon as possible. Another job evaluation technique is simple ranking. This is the technique that Robert has asked Marco to move forward with. Simple ranking is where the jobs are ranked lowest to highest based on specific criteria like job complexity (Martocchio, 2020). We know that Robert asked Marco to not move forward with the point method and use single ranking, this is most likely due to the advantage of being completed earlier. Some other advantages of simple ranking are that it’s easy and very effective when there are relatively few jobs to be evaluated (Job evaluation: Ranking). This would be a good alternative since there are not many jobs that need to be evaluated for this company. Some disadvantages are that the ranking judgements are subjective and new jobs would have to be compared with the existing jobs to determine an appropriate rank (Job evaluation: Ranking). In this case, the positions are newly created ones so other positions would need to be compared. The last job evaluation technique is alternate ranking. This technique is like simple ranking where the position is evaluated on a specific criteria like job complexity but ranked from highest to lowest (Martocchio, 2020). With that, they would have similar advantages and disadvantages to simple ranking.
What problems may occur by following Robert’s approach?
Robert has requested that Marco moves forward with simple ranking, however there are a couple of problems that could occur with this approach. The first one is legality. Ranking methods do not utilize jobs descriptions and would be difficult to defend legally (Martocchio, 2020). By doing this approach, it could result in an unfair compensation claim against the employer. Another problem is that the ranking results are subjective. I am not sure how Marco can create an affirmative action plan under these circumstances. The ranking process lacks objective standards, guidelines, and principles causing the process to have no resolution if there is a difference of opinion (Martocchio, 2020).
What do you recommend Marco do first? Why?
Marco was hired to conduct a job evaluation technique for this company. Marco provided a variety of choices to the employer and made his recommendation. The company has asked him to go in a different direction than what he recommended. I believe Marco should respect the employer’s choice and complete the job he was hired to do. However, I think the first thing Marco should do is document what his recommendations were before performing the job. That way, if there are problems that arise, Marco has secured himself.
Job Evaluation: Point Method. Job evaluation: Point method. (n.d.). https://www.hr-guide.com/JobEvaluation/Job_Evaluation_PointMethod.htm
Job evaluation: Ranking. Job Evaluation: Ranking Method. (n.d.). https://www.hr-guide.com/JobEvaluation/Job_Evaluation_Ranking.htm
Martocchio, J. J. (2020). Strategic compensation a human resource management approach. Pearson Education.
POST 2
The advantages and disadvantages of the simple ranking: Each job is considered totally and is used in smaller companies which means that this approach would be completed in a faster manner.
The advantages and disadvantages of the alternate ranking: Jobs are rated by job complexity or how the job relates to the competitive strategy of the company.
Outlines which job is the most valuable and which is least valuable. This process continues until all the jobs are evaluated.
Disadvantages of Ranking systems:
1. Results rely on subjective data (lack of objective guidelines, standards, and principles) that will help in solidifying differences of opinion between committee members.
2. Ranking Criteria defined by the company are not followed.
3. Rankings do not utilize job descriptions nor job analyses and are difficult to legally defend.
4. Rankings do not provide standards for compensation professionals to answer questions.
5. There are no objective scales that identify how different in value one job is from another.
The advantages and disadvantages of the point method job evaluation techniques:
Advantages:
a. It utilized quantitative methods to assign a numerical value to compensation factors that describe jobs.
b. These values are added as an indicator of the overall value for the job.
c. The value of the job is based on the overall numerical value.
d. Compensation factors weigh in on the importance of each factor of the job.
e. The evaluation committee follows seven steps to complete the point method.
Disadvantages of the point method job evaluation technique:
a. Managers must define compensation factors that effectively reflect the range of jobs up for evaluation.
b. Each job should be described by the factors that tell it different from the value of all other jobs.
c. The number of compensation factors companies use varies.
d. Individual jobs vary in scope and content.
The problems that may occur by following Robert’s approach are many and go against HR best practices. Marco does not have any working experience with any of the HR systems that Smith Upholstery has, or he does not have extensive experience. For example, Robert trusted Marco with this project after he just started in the company for one week. This posed a high risk because Marco has not yet built any working relationships so that he can effectively get things done (Nelson & Quick, 2019). Marco is also utilizing the tools that he learned in his degree program and no other sources (Martocchio, 2020). This will cause problems as there is no one cookie cutter solution to HR problems.
I recommend Marco form an evaluation committee to evaluate the jobs at Smith Upholstery and rank them. Once this has been accomplished Marco should then approach Robert Smith and give him that report. Once the report is reviewed Robert should see that the report is not only from Marco’s perspective but from multiple Smith Upholstery employees. This should move Robert to action based on the findings of the evaluation committee.
References:
Blanchard, P. B., & Thacker, J. W. (2019) Effective training: Systems, strategies, and practices (6th Ed.). Chicago; Chicago Business Press. ISBN 13: 978-0-9988140-6-3
Martocchio, J. J. (2020). Strategic compensation: a human resource management approach (10th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN: 9780135192146
Nelson, D. L. & Quick, J. C. (2019). Organizational behavior (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage. ISBN-13: 978-1-337-40781-6
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