Work of equal value and job evaluation.

What the Directive requires

The principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value has been in the EU Treaties for decades. What the Directive adds is the structure to check it. Article 4(1) requires employers to have pay structures that ensure equal pay for equal work or work of equal value, and Article 4(4) sets out how the value of work is assessed:

The same paragraph says the criteria are agreed with workers’ representatives where such representatives exist. Article 3(1)(g) then defines work of equal value as work found to be of equal value under those criteria.

Why job titles are not enough

Titles describe how an organisation labels work, not what the work demands. Two different titles can carry the same demands, and one title can hide very different ones. Grouping by title also tends to reproduce the existing pay structure, including whatever bias it already contains. If women are concentrated in roles that were historically valued low, a title-based comparison never sets those roles next to the male-dominated roles of equal value.

How job evaluation works

Job evaluation assesses the demands of each role against the same set of factors, so that different roles can be compared. Analytical methods break each factor into subfactors, rate every role on each subfactor, and add the ratings into a total score. Roles with similar totals form a grade, and each grade is a category of workers.

1. Agree the factors and subfactors, with workers’ representatives where they exist.
2. Describe each role as it is done, not as the title suggests.
3. Rate every role on every subfactor, recording why each rating was given.
4. Weight and add the ratings into a total score.
5. Group roles into grades by score.
6. Compare pay within each grade, and check the results for bias.

The method matters less than its consistency: the same factors, the same scale and the same rules for every role, with each decision written down.

The four factors in practice

Where bias gets in

The Directive singles out soft skills for a reason. Evaluation schemes have often been built around the demands of male-dominated jobs, and the demands of female-dominated jobs go unseen. Watch for these patterns:

• Physical effort scored, emotional effort ignored.
• Responsibility for money and equipment scored higher than responsibility for people’s care or wellbeing.
• Working conditions limited to noise, dirt and danger, leaving out exposure to distress, aggression or constant interruption.
• Communication and coordination skills treated as personality traits rather than job requirements.
• Subfactors that double-count the same demand, which over-rewards the jobs that have it.
• Ratings made from job titles or from the current holder rather than from the work.

A useful test: after the evaluation, look at the grades by sex. If female-dominated roles cluster at the bottom, examine which subfactors put them there before you accept the result.

How we do it

We evaluate each role on the four factors of the European Institute for Gender Equality’s framework, split into fourteen subfactors. HR answers a structured questionnaire for each role, and rules turn the answers into subfactor levels, each with a written reason. AI may suggest raising a level, and only by quoting the answer that supports it. HR confirms every result.

The total score sets the role’s grade, and the grade is the category of workers the pay gap analysis compares. The weights are configuration, versioned with the methodology, not hidden in the code. Read the methodology for the factor definitions, or see how grades feed into a joint pay assessment.

Frequently asked questions