Job Leveling
Compare jobs across departments, clarify career progression, and assess employee performance accurately
Job leveling groups jobs based on their value to the company and level of complexity. It creates a consistent structure for evaluating and comparing roles, regardless of department or function. Salary.com’s consultants will help you develop and implement a scalable job leveling framework that supports pay transparency, workforce efficiency, and smarter talent deployment.
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Why You Need a Structured Job Leveling Framework
In an unpredictable economy, business leaders are under pressure to manage resources with precision. Job leveling gives you the clarity and structure to make better decisions—without sacrificing fairness or engagement.
Our consultants will partner with you to conduct organization-wide job leveling, so you can:
Strengthen Cost Control with Strategic Workforce Planning
Align headcount with business priorities, eliminate role duplication, and ensure every position delivers measurable value. Job leveling is a practical tool for identifying inefficiencies before they impact your bottom line.
Improve Manager Effectiveness and Accountability
Set consistent expectations across your organization, making it easier for managers to give meaningful feedback, evaluate performance fairly, and set realistic, role-specific goals.
Enable Internal Mobility and Agile Talent Deployment
Identify transferable skills and move employees into new roles or projects as business needs evolve. This flexibility is critical during acquisitions, restructures, or periods of accelerated hiring.
Reduce Risk by Standardizing Compensation Practices
By comparing roles based on scope and responsibility—not title or department—you can ensure pay transparency, comply with evolving regulations, and guard against internal bias or costly legal exposure.
Our Process: Designed for Scalability, Integration and Alignment
Our job leveling process is tailored to your organization, ensuring alignment with company culture, values, and long-term goals—while remaining scalable for future growth.
A typical engagement is structured around these core steps:
Review and Assessment
- Evaluate current job titles, descriptions, and organizational structure. This includes reviewing any evaluation methods, leveling frameworks, and compensation practices currently in place.
- Identify inconsistencies or gaps in the current framework that may hinder clarity or alignment with pay practices.
Framework Design
- Define the criteria used to differentiate levels, such as scope of responsibility, decision-making authority, complexity, and required competencies.
- Create standard level definitions tailored to different role categories (e.g., individual contributors, managers, executives).
Job Mapping
- Collaborate with stakeholders to map positions into the new levels based on the established criteria.
- Use structured tools (e.g., point-factor systems or factor comparison techniques) to ensure objectivity and accuracy.
Validation and Refinement
- Collaborative discussions with key stakeholders to validate initial job placements and surface any questions or concerns.
- Based on feedback, refine level definitions and placements as needed to reflect organizational nuances.
What You’ll Get
- A comprehensive job leveling framework with defined criteria, level descriptions, and mapped roles.
- A custom leveling guide and tools to support ongoing maintenance. This enables your team to apply the framework with confidence and accuracy.
Why Choose Salary.com’s Consultants
Diversified and Experienced Team
Our individual consultants have decades of experience in a variety of industries. We have the knowledge and skills to help you in your specific organization, industry, and circumstances. The team will lead you expertly through the process explaining the decisions along the way so you can communicate the results yourself.
High-Touch Communication
Clear communication is a cornerstone of our process, and we will be with you every step of the way. Our team of consultants are available to provide guidance and support. If deliverables are necessary to other stakeholders, we can either build that for you or expertly guide you to create whatever artifacts are necessary.
Salary.com’s Powerful Solutions
We leverage Salary.com’s industry-leading total compensation management platform, making full use of its trusted data and award-winning compensation solutions. As experts in the tools we use, the consulting team leverages the best technology and data in the Total Compensation Industry. Having the right tools enables us to make the process more efficient and reliable.
An Extra Set of Hands
Serious analysis is a big undertaking that all too often gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. This is a mistake, and everyone knows it, but sometimes your internal team just can’t get the time. Our consultants provide the extra resources and expertise to implement your compensation initiatives.
Third-Party Neutrality
Bringing in outside help demonstrates your commitment to fairness, transparency, and impartiality. It also guarantees a level of discretion not always possible within an organization. Our consultants invest the right time with your stakeholders to provide them with confidence that we stand behind the results of our analyses.
Organizations Getting It Right
Insights You Need to Get It Right
