United Nations ICSC/75/R.13 International Civil Service Commission Distr.: Restricted 10 May 2012 Original: English Seventy-fifth session New York, 9-20 July 2012 Item 6 (b) of the provisional agenda* Conditions of service of the General Service and other locally recruited staff Assessing the implementation of the job evaluation standard for the General Service and related categories Note by the secretariat of the International Civil Service Commission Background 1. At its fifty-seventh session, in 2003, the Commission requested its secretariat to conduct research on a proposal to reform the job evaluation system for the General Service and related categories. The work was to be carried out in consultation with organizations and staff representatives. The progression of support category functions should be examined from a global perspective, including the possibility of the application of a single standard for the classification of all General Service jobs. Reasons for reform of the job evaluation system 2. While it was acknowledged that the classification system was subjected to undue pressure, as staff sought to realize their expectations for career advancement through reclassification procedures, it was nevertheless strongly believed that the standards then in use did not adequately reflect new ways in which work was performed or the changing work environment, which had radically modified the way in which work was designed and carried out. New and varied tasks were being assigned to General Service staff in organizations across the common system, making it necessary for this category of staff to exercise greater discretionary judgement and technical independence. The standards could not adequately reflect those changes. Furthermore, the perception of some staff members in the General Service category was that they were inadequately recognized through the application of the standard for their years of experience and formal training. Hence, it was felt that there was a pressing need for improved human resources systems that linked jobs and people by establishing and recognizing required competencies and * ICSC/75/R.1. (E) 210512 *1233627*
facilitating improved career mobility for staff. 3. In July 2004, at its fifty-ninth session, the Commission emphasized that the approach and the direction that it desired for the reform for the General Service and related categories involved a holistic system linking competencies to performance, as had been implemented for the Professional and higher categories. Furthermore, it was the expectation of the Commission that any proposal for the reform of the General Service and related categories would be geared towards an integrated human resource management system. At its sixty-first session, in 2005, the Commission established a working group with the following terms of reference: To review the changing nature of work in the United Nations common system organizations, to assess the impact of changes in the work of the staff of the General Service and related categories of the organizations and to develop a global job evaluation system for the General Service and related categories across the United Nations common system. The objective of the working group is to develop a global, transparent, simple system for evaluating General Service work. Such a system must be flexible, respond to the needs of organizations, better reflect the work as currently performed by the staff and support other human resources subsystems. The work should be carried out in accordance with the following process: (a) Information-gathering and data collection. To complement the findings of the consultant s report, the working group will gather information and data (e.g., a sampling or review of up-to-date job descriptions from across the United Nations system, vacancy announcements and ongoing training requirements of the organizations) and identify evolving programme needs and changes in functions and requirements of work; (b) Data analysis. On the basis of the comprehensive analysis mentioned above, the working group should recommend whether the current definition of the nature of work in the General Service and related categories continues to apply, and if not, how it should be changed; (c) Revision of the Common Classification of Occupational Groups. In the light of the analysis mentioned above, the working group should recommend appropriate revisions to the Common Classification of Occupational Groups to reflect the new definitions for the relevant occupational groups (ICSC/61/R.18/annex III). Activities of the Commission secretariat since the promulgation of the standard Training 4. The job evaluation system for the General Service (GS) and related categories was promulgated effective 15 March 2010. Since that time the secretariat has made the system available on the Commission website in French, Spanish and English, the original version. The secretariat has also conducted nine training sessions globally, in headquarters and in field duty stations, in which over 200 persons from 22 organizations participated. Sessions were conducted in Rome (9-10 September 2010); Geneva (13-14 September 2010) and (17-20 January 2012 jointly with the United Nations Secretariat); Nairobi (6-7 October 2010); Khartoum (11-13 October 2010); Bangkok (8-9 November 2010); New York (7-8 December 2010); Panama 2
(28-29 April 2011); and Montreal (13-15 June 2011). The target group was human resources practitioners, in particular persons who were already involved in classifying jobs in their organizations. In addition, some organizations, in particular the larger ones, such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the organizations in Vienna, have conducted training sessions for their own staff; 245 staff members have been trained by their organizations. Other organizations that did not report this time (but had reported last year) have indicated that all their classification personnel were trained in the use of the system. Benchmarks for General Service salary surveys 5. The Commission will recall that at its seventy-second session in 2011 it decided that a common set of benchmark jobs should be used in salary surveys for general service jobs. The secretariat has developed a series of benchmark jobs across eight occupational groups for this purpose. These benchmarks, as well as being adequate for measuring internal relativities, were designed to provide an accurate base for external relativities. The dimensions and job challenge of each role are articulated in a way that will be easily understood internally and externally and, most importantly, they contain the right information to be evaluated in marketrelated, as well as a job evaluation, context. Implementation by organizations 6. Twenty-one common system organizations responded to a questionnaire from the ICSC secretariat on the status of implementation of the standard in their respective organization. At present, the International Labour Organization (ILO) uses the new standard to cross-check results attained by comparing jobs to generic profiles and United Nations Organization for Project Services (UNOPS) applies both the new standard and the previous one. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has not yet begun applying the new General Service standard. 7. Most organizations have taken the approach of re-evaluating posts against the new General Service standard only for new requests to fill vacancies or for reclassification rather than conducting a comprehensive classification review. Within these organizations there are 61,503 posts in the General Service and related categories. More than 15 per cent of them have been classified against the new standard (30 per cent when the United Nations is not included). In addition, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNOPS and some departments of the United Nations Secretariat reported that information on the total number of posts classified was not available. WHO reported only posts classified for headquarters, as did UNDP. The percentage of jobs classified using the universal General Service standard in each organization since its promulgation ranges from a low of zero (UNRWA) to 100 per cent in the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), which reviewed its generic job profiles for all its General Service posts against the standard. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reclassified 4,614 (90%) of its 5,124 General Service posts and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) classified almost 80 per cent (for example, 77.5%) of its 1,012 established General Service posts. The majority of posts (70%) classified against the standard so far have retained their original grades. No appeals against rulings based on the new standard have been reported. 3
8. At least two organizations, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have put policies in place for cyclical reviews and revalidation of job descriptions, every three years in the case of ITU and every four years of UNESCO. This should positively impact the rate of implementation in these organizations and help with maintenance of the standard by preventing classification creep. Table 1 Percentage of posts in the General Service and related categories classified by organizations on the new standard Percentage of posts Organization 0 UNRWA Under 10 per cent United Nations; PAHO, WMO 11-20 per cent WIPO, WFP, UNIDO, UNDP a, WHO a 21-30 per cent UPU, FAO 31-50 per cent IFAD, UNICEF, IMO, ICAO 51-75 per cent Above 75 per cent Other IAEA, UNHCR, UNWTO ILO (standard used to cross check) a Numbers received for headquarters only; Numbers for UNFPA and UNOPS not available. Abbreviations: Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Salary structure 9. Job evaluation standards approved and promulgated by the Commission provide the legal framework for the salary structure. It is widely recognized that a well managed job evaluation exercise is an important foundation of pay management. Both agendas are inextricably linked and the job evaluation process is never separate from pay systems alignment and implementation. In fact, it could easily be said that the basic function of job evaluation is the development of salary scales and to situate individual positions within these scales. Since the basic purpose is to tag the position to the right salary scale for what the job is worth, one of the first and most obvious signs that a new standard is being implemented is changes to the structure of affected salary scales. While this was demonstrated in one duty station, Montreal, which previously followed the standard for ICAO, some duty stations where job classification was governed by the Global Classification Standard for Non-Headquarters Duty Stations (over 20 in Africa and Asia), continue to apply an eight-level salary structure, namely, GS-1A, GS-1B and GS-2 to GS-7. This is 4
true even in the case of Bangkok, for which a new salary scale came into effect on 1 March 2012. 10. In the case of Montreal, the standard consisted of nine grades. Since the promulgation of the new standard, ICAO, after classifying a sample of about 150 job descriptions against the new standard, conducted a renumbering exercise in which grade GS-1 was abolished (there were no incumbents), and posts were moved one level below their previous grades. Grade GS-9, previously a personal grade, was also abolished and incumbents were placed at the level of GS-7. New salary scales were issued; however, no staff member suffered any loss of pay. Other agencies operating at the duty station, specifically UNESCO, have been preparing to comply with the new standard. 11. The Commission will recall that it had stated, at its sixty-second session in 2006, that occupational groups such as Security Service and Trades and Crafts, covered by different standards, would be included in the review of the standard for the General Service and related categories in order to determine the feasibility of incorporating them in any proposed new job evaluation system. Security Services and Trades and Crafts standards continue to be used only in the United Nations Secretariat. Use of the standard 12. Comments from the organizations have been positive. Practitioners find the new standard is accessible and easy to apply, it speeds up the classification process and it is flexible, especially when classifying mixed or hybrid jobs. The use of one standard has facilitated comparison and analysis of jobs across regions and duty stations. Many users of the standard have commented on the updated language, which they say has brought clarity and is more reflective of the work done by staff in the General Service category. It is also easily understood by non-experts. Classifiers have also found that the grade level descriptors and the summary of ratings provided by the system give greater perspective when considering the rationale for specific ratings. 13. One of the main reasons for reforming job evaluation is to promote an integrated approach between job design, competencies development and performance management. For many organizations, performance review systems and competency frameworks were already in place before the introduction of the standard, and these organizations have not yet linked the classification system with these systems. A few other organizations have reported links with recruitment (the United Nations, FAO, ICAO, UNDP, UNICEF), performance management (ICAO, UNDP, IAEA, UNHCR, FAO) and competency framework (UNDP, UNHCR, FAO). The single classification standard provided the base for one organization (IAEA) to develop generic job descriptions across duty stations. ICAO and UNRWA reported that they are using the tool in the review and the design of competency framework. The new job description format, which is meant to describe responsibilities emphasizing results rather than tasks, has been linked to workplans in some performance review systems. Organizations that have adopted the new format have found it to be quite adequate for their classification needs. This job description was designed to be used as a vacancy notice also. One organization commented that merging job evaluation and vacancy notice into one document contributed to a more efficient and streamlined process. 5
Human resources reform: impact of change in the job evaluation tool on the organizations 14. Among other issues, organizations identified the following as areas that the new job evaluation standard needed to address: (a) Unfulfilled staff expectations with respect to career development not addressed through existing job streams; (b) Changes in job structures in comparator organizations making it difficult to make meaningful salary matches on the basis of outdated common system jobs; (c) Lack of transparency in most of the previous standards; (d) Inordinate delay in arriving at classification decisions; (e) Cost of maintaining the previous system increasing as the number of classifiers decreased; (f) Apparent variations in the administration of systems across duty stations; (g) Inadequate support for a holistic approach to the management of human resources with the previous stand-alone standards. 15. In addition, a broad-based study commissioned by the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) Human Resources Network had indicated that one of the chief obstacles to harmonization of business practices in field duty stations was inconsistent grading and classification of jobs in these duty stations. 1 It was felt that the promulgation and the application of the new General Service standard would have gone a long way towards eliminating this obstacle for locally recruited staff. 16. The development and the introduction of a single universal standard forms the base on which organizations can begin to address most of the issues listed in paragraph 14. How it relates to the issue of variations across the system is selfevident. The other issues were addressed in the following ways: (a) The revision of the Common Classification Occupational Grouping included a total overhaul of the job streams, omitting job groups that no longer exist in the system and including new ones; (b) Besides updating the underlying knowledge requirements, the standard outlines clear paths focusing on position roles, contribution and result expectations at each level; (c) Standard benchmarks for use in all duty stations for salary surveys, as approved by the Commission in 2011, address to the issue of comparisons with external organizations during salary surveys; (d) The standard was designed, with respect to its language and the summaries that it produces, to be easily understood by persons who are not human resources practitioners. Organizations have reported that the standard is easy to use and allows for speedier classification of jobs. 17. Although the issue of internal relativities between roles will continue to be an essential component in considering pay, classifying based on a job evaluation 1 See CEB/2010/HLCM/HR/36. 6
system can only be a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Simply arriving at a score that will enable the positioning of a role in a grade is not enough to stimulate any real reform around a job evaluation standard. If the standard is to provide adequate support to holistic human resource management approaches, organizations will have to make an effort to fully implement and integrate the standard with their other human resources subsystems. For transformation of the system to occur, there should be broad awareness of reform goals. Line managers should be briefed in the use of the standard to build jobs in their work units, etc. Finally, the linking of job evaluation to the bigger picture in the following ways is necessary: (a) From a technical perspective, by emphasising its relationship to pay; (b) From a structural perspective, by showing its relationship to the organizational structure; (c) From a cultural perspective, by consolidating its relationship to the way the organization operates. 18. Unless these linkages are in place, the standard will be only partially implemented at best. Salary scales cannot continue to reflect the old standard. This is not fair to some staff members. Plans must be in place to correct disparities in equal pay for work of equal value at duty stations where similar duties are carried out in different organizations. Not only will this affect staff morale, it will also enhance and underpin reforms related to harmonizing business practices that organizations have indicated are of importance to them. Organizations should review their current generic job profiles against the standard, so that these profiles reflect the values being promoted by the new standard, instead of those of previous standards. The standard is an important tool in the development and the linking of competencies common to all organizations and can make a difference when considering career development and skills inventory. Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say that it is too early for there to be any perceptible impact of the new job evaluation system on organizations. Action by the Commission 19. The Commission is requested to: (a) Take note of the progress made by organizations in implementing the new job evaluation standards for the General Service and related categories; (b) Encourage organizations to vigorously implement the standard; (c) Request its secretariat to report on its implementation at its seventy-ninth session in 2014. 7