What is job evaluation?
Job evaluation is a method of assessing the value a given position holds for an organization. There are many job evaluation methods available on the market. I will focus only on the one that, in my opinion, best meets the requirements of the Pay Transparency Directive: the analytical method. First, you select evaluation criteria (e.g., responsibility, effort), then assign them weights and scoring based on a set scale (e.g., responsibility for one's own results is 1 point, while responsibility for a team is 2 points).
Based on the established weights and criteria, requirements are defined and points are calculated for each position, regardless of who holds it. The scope of tasks, responsibility, required skills, effort, and working conditions are assessed, resulting in an organized hierarchy of positions and their division into categories of comparable value. Based on this, the organization can assign a given position to the appropriate level in the salary structure.
Without evaluation, an organization has no way of demonstrating which positions are comparable, and without this, it cannot reliably calculate the pay gap by employee categories (more about the directive itself in the pay transparency guide).
The evaluation process, in accordance with the directive, must be objective, transparent, and, above all, consistent for the entire organization. Based on our experience with projects conducted to date, this consistency—i.e., establishing objective criteria that are the same for assessing all positions—is the greatest challenge for organizations.
What are the criteria for job evaluation according to the directive?
The directive outlines four criteria that organizations should use to conduct the job evaluation process: skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. These criteria are mandatory, meaning all four must be taken into account. They apply to both private enterprises and public administration. They must be objective, gender-neutral, and applied to all positions equally, regardless of roles held to date. According to the preliminary position of the European Commission services, the directive allows the use of sub-criteria and additional factors, provided they are justified, gender-neutral, and proportionate. The draft of the Polish law (UC127), which corresponds to the directive regarding criteria, has not yet been passed (as of October 9, 2026).
Skills
The skills criterion includes the knowledge, qualifications, and experience required for the position, as well as communication and collaboration skills, which are often overlooked in practice because they are difficult to measure.
Effort
This concerns the intellectual, emotional, and/or physical burden associated with performing the work. In our experience, this criterion is often evaluated by splitting it into two sub-criteria: physical effort and psychophysical effort.
Responsibility
Responsibility usually describes the scope of decision-making and the level of risk associated with decisions. Examples include responsibility for a team, a budget, or the safety of the organization.
Working conditions
The environment in which work is performed: risks, noise, shift work, night work, business travel, contact with difficult situations. Working conditions are often an overlooked criterion, and their importance is frequently underestimated, both for employees performing physical labor and administrative tasks.
Work of equal value and employee categories
Once positions are assessed according to these four criteria, those with a similar score fall into the same employee category. It is within these categories that the pay of women and men is compared; a pay gap calculated at the level of the entire organization without them tells us little (the principles for calculating it are described in our article on the pay gap).
What are the job evaluation methods?
Neither the directive nor local regulations impose a specific evaluation method, but the guide by the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy, developed with CIOP-PIB, recommends the analytical method. The common market benchmark—that is, evaluation based on market salary—does not meet the requirements defined in the regulations because it is not based on the four mandatory criteria. In addition to this, organizations have factor comparison and ranking methods at their disposal. Not all of them meet the requirements of the directive.
| Method | How it works | Assessment in sources |
|---|---|---|
| Analytical-point | Each level of each criterion has an assigned number of points, and the job value is the sum of these points | Recommended by MRPiPS and CIOP-PIB; |
| Analytical-weighted | Criteria have percentage weights, levels are evaluated on a common scale, and the value is the sum of the products of the level and weight | Analytical method, meets the requirement of assessment by criteria |
| Factor comparison | Positions are evaluated on levels defined for individual factors, without weights | Included in EIGE guidelines as a simplified approach for micro-organizations |
| Ranking, grouping, paired comparison | Positions are ordered as a whole, without breakdown by criteria | Insufficient according to MRPiPS; EIGE allows paired comparison as a simplified approach for small organizations |
How to conduct job evaluation step-by-step?
Job evaluation is conducted in four stages: analysis of the current state, definition of sub-criteria, establishment of the scale and weights, and finally, assigning specific levels of sub-criteria to positions.
Analysis of the current state
First and foremost, you must separate the person from the position. We evaluate individual positions, not people. To do this, a correct job structure that reflects reality is necessary. Without this, evaluation makes no sense. Therefore, analyzing the current structure, describing the scopes of responsibility, and mapping career paths is effectively stage zero. If the documentation is inaccurate or does not reflect reality, the organization starts by putting the current state in order.
In our experience, unfortunately, most organizations have quite a backlog regarding job structure. Positions are created for specific problems, in isolation, or as duplicates of existing ones. Since all positions must be evaluated according to common principles, our recommendation is to simplify the structure.
Definition of sub-criteria and grading
To define sub-criteria, organizations usually form an evaluation team, which should include employee representatives (trade unions). The involvement of trade unions and the agreement with them on the definitions of criteria adopted for evaluation follows from the provisions in the draft law (UC127). It is therefore worth planning enough time for potential negotiations and arrangements.
Organizations have the freedom to determine the number of criteria and sub-criteria, as long as all those described in the directive are taken into account. The regulations neither impose nor recommend an optimal number of criteria.
Establishing the scale and weights
Weights should be assigned only after complete information about the positions has been gathered, not before. This ensures they are not adjusted to fit a pre-expected result.
It should be remembered that the criteria and grading should be the same for all positions. Below is a very simplified schema. In my opinion, it is too simplified to use in practice. It serves solely as an illustrative example of how a matrix for analytical assessment should be constructed.
| Criterion | Weight | Grade 1 | Grade 2 | Grade 3 | Grade 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skills | 35% | Basic, requires short onboarding | Specialized, requires education or a course | Advanced, requires education and several years of experience | Expert, requires many years of experience and independent decisions on complex matters |
| Responsibility | 30% | For own work | For results of a small team or process | For results of a department, budget, or important decisions | For results of the organization, large budgets, or strategic decisions |
| Effort | 20% | Low physical and mental effort | Moderate, periodically elevated | High, regularly taxing | Very high, constantly taxing |
| Working conditions | 15% | Office, standard conditions | Periodically uncomfortable conditions or fieldwork | Regularly difficult conditions or time pressure | Constantly difficult or dangerous conditions |
Assigning levels of sub-criteria to positions
The analytical method involves (based on the example above) assigning the required grade from a given criterion to each position. Let's assume that Position A requires skills at level 1, responsibility at level 1, effort is assessed at level 2, and working conditions at level 2. Let level 1 equal 1 point, level 2 equal 2 points, etc. Thus, our Position A receives the value: 1 × 35% + 1 × 30% + 2 × 20% + 2 × 15%. The resulting score applies to a specific position and represents its value. In this way, we calculate the value for all positions in the organization and then map the point-based evaluation result onto the salary structure. It may happen that several positions from completely different departments receive the same number of points. This is exactly what salary management and controlling that people performing the same work or work of equal value receive salaries within a given range of the pay scale is all about.
How long does job evaluation take and who conducts it?
The actual assessment of positions in our workshop takes one day on the client's premises, with the participation of 6 to 10 people (HR, payroll, managers). This is only the workshop stage. It should not be confused with the entire project, because data must be collected before it, and results must be discussed after it.
The entire project lasts 3-6 months. We described the course of an example implementation in a case study from a university.
The time required to conduct the entire evaluation depends on several factors.
First, whether the organization has current documentation such as job descriptions, scopes of duties, job structure, and a salary scale. These documents—or rather, the knowledge of what is happening in the enterprise—are the basis. Without this, one cannot move to subsequent stages and conduct a job evaluation.
The second factor affecting the project duration is the cooperation of the evaluation team and the collaboration with employee representatives—most often trade unions. It is known that the more departments involved, with each fighting for their own interests, the harder it is to reach an agreement.
And the third factor influencing project time is, of course, the number of positions: the more there are, the more complex and longer the entire process is.
In practice, the team usually consists of people from HR, payroll, and the analysis department, as well as managers who know the positions being evaluated. The proposals received must be agreed upon with the union side. The organization can conduct the process itself or use a consultant. A consultant is useful for designing the scale, leading the assessment workshop, and providing an objective view of the results. Responsibility for the final categories remains with the employer.
By when must job evaluation be completed?
Job evaluation should be ready now, because obligations regarding informing candidates during recruitment, for instance, are based on its results.
The first stage of Polish regulations concerns recruitment and is effective from December 24, 2025. Employers must provide candidates with information about remuneration, and salary ranges should result from objective, gender-neutral criteria. Job evaluation is the organized way to establish them: without it, salary ranges are based on custom, negotiations from previous years, or a manager's intuition.
The second reason is the employee's right to salary information, which will stem from the act. An employee will be able to ask what the remuneration looks like for people performing work of equal value. To answer such a question, one must know which positions are work of equal value—i.e., one must have categories established through evaluation. As of now, the draft act assumes that an employee will receive information about the average remuneration from the last 12 months; therefore, when asking at the beginning of 2027, they should receive an answer based on data from the previous 12 months, i.e., 2026.
And the last reason is, of course, pay gap reporting. Because Poland did not implement the directive on time—i.e., by June 7, 2026—and the act will most likely come into force the following year, the time for the first reports will be pushed back to 2028.
Job evaluation: where to start?
Analyzing the current state is definitely the best first step. Verifying whether data such as job classification, remuneration system (e.g., salary scale), and job descriptions are current and complete is the basis for further work.
The next step is an action plan—that is, determining who will participate in the project and what tasks will be assigned to specific individuals. Selecting sub-criteria, descriptions, and setting weights is usually the longest stage. If you want to go through this process with a team that has done it in practice, take a look at our job evaluation workshops.
Legal status: October 9, 2026. Draft law UC127 has not yet been passed.
