Job Description and Evaluation: Equality and efficiency.
Since the new legislation on Equality came into force in 2020, companies have had to adapt their internal policies to adapt to this new regulatory environment. However, this adaptation process should not be considered exclusively as a legal requirement, but can become a powerful tool that allows us to transform our organizations, make them more egalitarian and enhance our efficiency, that is the approach that we project from the Consulting & Transformation Area of Psicotec.
How to make an organization more efficient thanks to Equality
First and foremost, you need to establish a clear roadmap with the steps to follow. This planning must be based on a critical element: the size of our company.
The law establishes the need for the existence of Equality Plans for all companies with 50 workers or more, but also establishes the obligation to have a remuneration register for all companies, regardless of their number of employees.
It is important not to confuse these two concepts; although not all companies are required to have an Equality plan (only those with 50 or more workers), all will have to carry out a remuneration audit.
But… What is a remuneration audit?
We understand a remuneration audit as the process of analysing remuneration in an organisation. This audit, by law, will consist of two elements:
- The diagnosis of the remuneration situation
- An action plan for the correction of pay inequalities
This audit will have to be reflected in a final document and is available to the members of the Negotiating Committee of the Equality Plan, where the participants on behalf of the RLT have a duty of secrecy, regulated by Article 65 of the Workers’ Statute.
And how to carry out the diagnosis of the remuneration situation?
The spirit of the regulation leads us to raise this point as the key moment of any equality strategy. We must know who performs which positions and the value of these positions to the organization as a whole. Once we are clear about this structure, we will go on to compare the value of the positions with their remuneration. The ultimate objective is to ensure equal pay for positions of equal value and in the event of discovering any inequality, to propose actions to correct it.
The first step: make a complete Job Description
Before analyzing any other aspect, we must know what tasks, jobs, and positions there are in our organization. We must be able to fit all our collaborators into x homogeneous categories with similar tasks. Only in this way will we be able to advance in any type of analysis of our company’s workforce.
From our experience, many entities have outdated or excessively superficial job descriptions that no longer represent the current true picture. Catching up on this aspect will allow us to undertake any structural analysis with updated information.
If a job description has always been one of the central elements of human resources consulting, hand in hand with Equality it has taken on a new prominence that we should not underestimate.
And together with the description, the Job Evaluation
Something similar happens to job evaluation. So much so, that today, they are practically united. We need to know what positions we have and what value they bring to the organization.
A Job Evaluation, as stated by the ILO is: “The procedure that tries to specify and compare what the performance, under normal conditions, of certain functions requires of workers, without taking into consideration their individual capacity or performance”. Therefore, you need to move away from simplistic visions that tend to confuse positions with departments.
A correct job valuation will transcend the area to analyze the value of each position in a transversal way.
Equality and Psicotec methodology
At Psicotec we conceive Equality not only as a requirement, but as a commitment on the part of society and companies. We firmly believe in equal pay for positions of equal value and are committed to equality and diversity.
If we all create healthy, equitable and open professional environments, we will be enriching our organizations and generating more inclusive, collaborative and sustainable ecosystems.
Psicotec’s job evaluation methodology is aligned with the requirements of the standard and the user guide published by the Ministry of Labour in April 2022, but it goes further and is characterised by greater simplicity, which greatly facilitates the process of assessing and detecting possible inequalities.
At Psicotec we have helped more than 50 organisations to develop or update their equality plans. To achieve this, we have a multidisciplinary team of more than 20 people that allows us to cover everything from the legal and trade union dimension, to the documentary-administrative and, of course, training, with training actions of awareness, non-discrimination, development of female talent and mentoring.
Whatever the situation of your organization, at Psicotec we can help you. Our 360º vision of People Management can be your best ally. Can we help you?