For many, the trickiest concept to understand about Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value is ‘value’. After all, how we quantify value will depend entirely on the uniqueness of our business and the impact of the role within the business structure.

To guide us, section 5.4 of the Code of Good Practice for Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value, says that “value” includes:

  • the responsibility demanded of the work, including responsibility for people, finances and material;
  • the skills, qualifications, including prior learning and experience required to perform the work, whether formal or informal;
  • physical, mental and emotional effort required to perform the work;
  • the assessment of working conditions which may include an assessment of the physical environment, psychological conditions, time when, and geographic location where the work is performed.

This is not new. All grading systems would take these factors into account when determining the value of a role in regards to remuneration.

Whilst a grading system is a logical way of assessing work conducted throughout an organisation, it relies heavily on the accuracy of the job profiles associated with each function. As the profiling process can be tedious, time-consuming and costly, many companies have job profiles that are several years old.

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