Comparable across career paths
The same grade means an equivalent level of requirements – regardless of the career path.
Resources · Vendor methodology
How gradar turns ratings into grades.
Career paths, evaluation factors and a separate effort level: the method behind the grade ranges shown on the job evaluation page.
Vendor methodology · Published by QPM, the makers of gradar, as a reference for the method named on the job evaluation page. The guide pages themselves stay vendor-neutral.
What the method produces
Every job ends up as three values: a career path, a grade, and an effort level where effort and working conditions are material. A result reads, for example, Management grade 14, effort level B.
The grade comes from rated factors. The effort level comes from four separate factors, each on a five-point scale. Both are documented, so a grade can be traced back to the ratings that produced it.
Grade ranges
One scale, four career paths
Each career path covers its own range of the 25 grades. Job matching and the competency logic use the same ranges.
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425
Individual Contribution
Project Management
Management
Executive
01020304050607080910111213141516
EX-01 sits level with grade 16, EX-10 with grade 25 – EX-11 to EX-16 continue the scale beyond. Executive levels are evaluated using sizing factors.
Own levels possible
Grades and executive levels can be translated into company-specific levels per career path.
Basis for matching and competencies
Career path + grade + global job family drive benchmark job matches and competencies.
Career paths
The career paths compared
The career path describes how a position contributes – and determines the evaluation factors.
Individual Contribution
The position contributes mainly through the application and development of specific skills – individually or as a member of an organisational unit. Responsibility ranges from clearly defined tasks to the technical leadership of a discipline as an expert. Disciplinary leadership is not a core task.
Project Management
The core task of the position is project management. Coordination, planning and allocation of people, resources and budgets in time-limited, one-off projects (product or service).
Management
The focus is on the disciplinary management of employees and organisational units, where applicable with budget responsibility. Results are achieved indirectly through leadership, development, support and motivation, and the effective use of available resources.
Executive
Overall organisational responsibility for organisations, business units or a corporate group; accountable for business performance (P&L) and responsible for strategy in the respective area. Only executive positions involved in day-to-day management – not supervisory board members or non-executive directors. The result is an executive level EX-01 to EX-16.
Evaluation factors
Each factor sits under one EU category
Effort and working conditions are rated separately and shown as an effort level A–E alongside the grade.
| EU categories | Individual Contribution | Project Management | Management | Evaluation result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skills | Professional Knowledge | Grade 1–25 | ||
| Experience | ||||
| Cognitive Abilities / Problem Solving | ||||
| Responsibility | People Responsibility | Project Responsibility & Leadership Span | Leadership Span & Guided Group of Employees | |
| Processes & Complexity | Project Size & Project Budget | Processes & Complexity | ||
| Functional Responsibility & Scope of Decisions | Organisational Responsibility & Scope of Decisions | |||
| (Social) skills | Organisational Knowledge | |||
| Communication | ||||
| Effort | Mental and Psycho-Social Effort | Effort level A–E | ||
| Physical Effort | ||||
| Working conditions | Environmental Influences | |||
| Other stress factors of a physical, psychological or emotional nature | ||||
Executive career path: evaluated using sizing factors, including type of business unit and level of organisational responsibility.
Effort level
Grade plus effort level
Working conditions and effort are deliberately evaluated separately and shown as a distinct effort level alongside the grade – for example grade 10 C. Try it: click a level on each scale and watch the effort level change.
10 CGrade + effort level
ABCDE
Effort levelEffort level C.
Mental and Psycho-Social Effort
Level 3
Physical Effort
Level 3
Environmental Influences
Level 2
Other stress factors of a physical, psychological or emotional nature
Level 2
Transparency
The value of the job and the conditions of the work remain distinguishable, instead of hiding a few points inside the grade.
Equal value
Where working conditions are material, grade and effort level together are relevant for equal-value comparisons.
No double counting
What is already recognised through responsibility, complexity or other factors is not rewarded again.
Reading the result
The grade says how a job rates against the factors. The effort level says what the work costs the person doing it. Where working conditions are material, the two together decide whether different jobs are of equal value.
The four criteria are the legal minimum; the method decides how finely you rate them.
Job evaluation and the four criteria