Guideline # 5

Determining Job Class

The Pay Equity Act requires that female job classes be evaluated and compared to male job classes on the basis of skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions, using a gender neutral comparison system. Female jobs classes, which are found to be of equal or comparable value to male job classes, must be paid at least the same.

Pay equity comparisons are between "job classes", which is a term that has a specific meaning under the Act. The Pay Equity Act allows employers to group positions into job classes to simplify the job comparison process. Some job classes may include hundreds of positions occupied by employees all performing similar duties and responsibilities with the same compensation. Other job classes may have only one position, occupied by a single incumbent.

A job class is defined as one or more positions which:

Tests for Grouping Positions into Job Classes:

1. Do positions have similar duties and responsibilities?

All the positions in a job class must have similar duties and responsibilities. Because duties and responsibilities do not have to be identical, several positions can be included in a job class, which may reduce the number of comparisons that need to be made. A job class can also be made up of one position that is unique in the organization.

2. Do the positions require similar qualifications?

Positions in the same job class must have similar qualifications. The qualifications do not have to be identical. The qualifications considered should be those required to do the job, not those qualifications an employee may happen to have or which are desirable but not really currently required.

It is important to be consistent in defining similar in terms of basic experience, education and other qualifications. To decide whether qualifications are similar, consider both the nature and the level of the qualifications. The qualifications should be for similar types of work. For example, teaching has different qualifications than clerical work or engineering. Qualifications should also be similar in terms of level of qualification. For example, a community-college diploma could be equivalent to a three-year apprenticeship in a trade.

3. Are the positions filled using similar recruiting procedures?

Recruiting procedures include scope of search (i.e. local, provincial, national, international), method of recruitment (i.e. union hiring hall, college campus, internal, external, newspaper advertisement, "head hunter") and recruiting requirements (i.e. application, interview, test). Their importance in determining job class is often related to qualifications and may not make a difference.

4. Do the positions have the same compensation schedule, salary grade or range of salary rates?

If the other tests are met, positions can be grouped into the same job class if they have the same:

The Act defines compensation as all payments and benefits. Accordingly, positions in the same job class must have the same compensation and equal access to the same benefits package. While the other requirements for job class are similar, the compensation for positions in a job class must be the same.

Common Compensation Terms

It is useful to consider the accepted definitions for some common compensation terms:

Full -Time and Part -Time Work

Positions in which employees work full-time and part-time doing the similar work would belong to the same job class if they have the same compensation schedule, salary grade or range of salary rates, and meet the other tests for job class. However, where part-time employees perform similar duties and responsibilities, but receive a different rate of compensation, or receive the same rate or range but receive no benefits, the full and part-time employees would be in separate job classes.

Exclusions

Positions that are casual may be excluded from the pay equity process. A position is not defined as casual and cannot be excluded if:

Note: These exclusions apply only when the work performed is casual work. In other words, the work itself is of a temporary nature. The definition of a position as casual does not depend on whether the employee hired to do the work is employed on a casual basis. For example, an employer has a seasonal position, each year for a limited period of time. Different employees are hired each year. However the position would not be excluded because the work is performed on a seasonal basis in the same position for the same employer.

All exceptions to the requirements of the Act should be interpreted narrowly and applied in a way that respects the purpose of the Pay Equity Act.

Subsection 1(1)	Defines job class, states that students working on vacations are not employees under the Act.
Subsection 1(6)	States that a job class may consist of only one position.
Subsection 1(7)	States that a position cannot be assigned to a job class different than that of other similar positions only because the needs of its incumbent have been accommodated to comply with the Human Rights Code, 1987.
Subsection 4(2)	Defines how systemic discrimination in compensation is identified.
Subsection 6(1)	Defines when pay equity is achieved under the job-to-job comparison method.
Subsection 8(3)	States that a position that provides casual employment may be excluded from pay equity.
Subsection 8(4)	Defines casual.