Hay evaluation method

‘Working Conditions’ assess the environment in which the job is performed.

Working Conditions are made up of four dimensions:

1. “Physical Effort” - jobs, which may require levels of physical activity, which may produce physical, stress, or fatigue.
2. “Physical Environment” - jobs which may include exposure to unavoidable physical and environmental factors which increase the risk of accidents, ill health or discomfort to the employee.
3. “Sensory Attention” - jobs which may require concentrated levels of sensory attention (i.e. seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching) during the work process.
4. “Mental Stress” - refers to exposure to factors inherent in the work process or environment, which increase the risk of such things as tension or anxiety.

Each of these four dimensions is measured according to duration, intensity, and frequency.

All of these factors are evaluated in each job evaluation, and the cumulative total is a total point factor for the position. Because jobs have so many variables, it is possible that a job without a high score in Know How but with severe Working Conditions could result in the same number of points with a job that has the opposite components.

For example, an insurance clerk and a bus driver have few job responsibilities that are similar, but might be evaluated in total at the same point level.

Please note that the following examples do not represent jobs at the University of Waterloo and are used only as an explanation of the Hay system.

Working conditions table example Factor Intermediate insurance clerk School bus driver Total Points 155 155 Know how 100 87 Problem-solving 19 16 Accountability 25 22

Working conditions:

Physical effort 2 Physical effort 9 Physical environment 1 Physical environment 7 Sensory attention 6 Sensory attention 9 Mental stress 2 Mental stress 5

Although these jobs have little in common and differ in the Hay Points for individual factors, their total points are the same and therefore the jobs are considered to be of equal value.

Obviously, the trained evaluator must consider the ratings awarded to a Senior Insurance Clerk and Junior Insurance Clerk to maintain the integrity of the rating within job families when evaluating the Intermediate Insurance Clerk.

While these jobs have been evaluated individually, important concepts are consistency of application and the establishment of benchmark positions. All positions within an organization are evaluated in comparison to the benchmarks using a consistently applied evaluation tool.