The National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) says government cannot achieve a fair and equitable reward system without a good understanding of the relative worth of one’s skills, profession and services.
It is on the above premise that the Commission is embarking on job evaluation and grading starting first with the Health Sector.
The Chairman, National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, NSIWC , Ekpo Nta Esq. made this known during the briefing of Contact Officers drawn from Health Sector Agencies.
This is to get their buy-in into the exercise before the commencement of the Comprehensive Job Evaluation Exercise in the Nigerian Public Health Sector.
Ekpo Nta, Esq. who noted that the exercise would address the ever-increasing challenges posed in the remuneration administration system in the Public Sector emphasised that a logical and equitable wage structure is a natural outcome of job evaluation.
A statement from Head, Public Affairs Division, Emmanuel Njoku quoted the Chairman of NSIWC as saying that job evaluation became necessary as jobs in the Public Service especially in the health sector have changed in nature, content and utility relative to their state in 1974 when the lasr job evaluation and grading was done.
“Job evaluation eliminates salary inequalities by placing jobs that have similar requirements in the same salary range, as such helping in solving wage- related grievances quickly.”
The Chairman of the Commission explained that the Commission had proposed to embark on job captured the comprehensive evaluation and grading of jobs in the Federal Public Service its Five year Strategic Plan, but due to financial contraints, the Commission had not been able to embark on the project. This has necessitated to scaling it down to sectors starting with the Health Sector.
In his welcome remarks, the Director, Evaluation and Grading, E&G, Mr.Çhukwuma Nwachinemere said job evaluation provides a systematic process for assessing the relative value of job to one another in an organisation.
Mr Nwachinemere noted that the exercise is a procedure – oriented method, which compels Evaluation and Grading officers, as well as Compensation officers to always look at all the key factors and sub- factors of a job, in order to eliminate biases and arbitrariness that might arise in every stage of compensation.
It should be noted that the Government while attempting to tackle these challenges, had at one time or the other, set up several Ad-hoc Committees and Presidential Panels.
These include the Tudor Grading teams of 1942, the Udoji Commission of 1972-1974, following by the Dotun Philips, Shonekan, Cookey and Onosode Presidential Panels.
All these committees and panels came up with one common recommendation which is , the establishment of an effective and efficient job evaluation and grading process for all public sector jobs.
