How does anyone decide whether work should be rated as equivalent?
There may be a job evaluation scheme in place, of the kind that awards points for the various requirements of each job - so much for mental concentration, so much for physical effort, and so on. Such schemes are virtually unknown outside the top 1,000 companies, some big charities, the civil service and publicly-funded enterprises. But employees may still make a claim for doing work that is 'similar', or 'of equal value'.The Employment Tribunal must rely on the findings of a job evaluation scheme, if there is one, unless there are 'reasonable grounds' for believing that it is biased or otherwise unreliable. For example, a scheme that gave an inappropriate weighting (too low) to an element that was an important part of a woman's job (such as caring, in an old people's home), or an inappropriate weighting (too high) to an element that was an important part of a man's job (such as physical strength, in the case of a gardener), might well be judged to be discriminatory, and therefore inadequate as a defence against an equal pay claim.
Related Resources
in the Legal Information Centre
- We are recruiting a woman to do the job of a man who is retiring. Do we have to pay her what he was getting?
- If we have no one doing a job similar to that of a female employee, do we need to worry about her making a claim under the Equal Pay Act?
- What is a comparator?
- How does anyone decide whether work is 'of equal value'.
