A revision of a job evaluation system

Abstract

Aims. This paper reports a revision of the United Kingdom's National Health Service Job Evaluation System and tests the revised system in eight clinical nursing management jobs in four Turkish hospitals. Background. A job evaluation system was developed in the United Kingdom in 2003-2004. Most studies have focused on how the whole system will be implemented in a health organization. No study investigating proficiency of the system in terms of factors and their level definitions was found. Methods. The factors Knowledge, Training and experience and Working conditions were divided into five factors: Knowledge, Experience, Education, Environmental conditions and Hazards. To test the revised system, all the nursing management jobs in four hospitals were evaluated using a factor-based questionnaire including nurses' demographic information and 19 variables. The questionnaire was distributed to 57 supervisor nurses in 31 clinics at four hospitals in one Turkish city in 2005. All the questionnaires were analysed to evaluate the jobs. Results. The job scores change depending on clinical conditions. Although the score range in the National Health Service Job Evaluation system has been determined as 405-465 points (band VI) for Nurse team leader and 469-536 points (band VII) for Nurse team manager jobs, the job scores in the present study were 363 (band V) - 557 points (band VIIIa) and 379 (band V) - 586 points (band VIIIa) respectively. Conclusion. Although this exploratory study was limited to four hospitals in one city in Turkey, the results indicated that two new jobs would be identified in the National Health Service system to match the jobs in the intensive care and emergency units. © 2006 The Author.