Background

Since the negotiation of the 2014-2019 Provincial Framework Agreement, a ton of work has been done on the Provincial Job Evaluation Plan. Most importantly, the plan has been piloted in two separate groups of districts.

Pilot 1 – Work Completed

The seven Pilot 1 districts completed two major rounds of work involving matching, reviewing jobs and reviewing the provincial benchmarks.

Round 1 was a first test of matching district jobs to the provincial benchmarks and produced the results shown (see Pilot Group 1: First Round of Matching)

Round 2 was a refinement of the benchmarks and rating process, and districts were responsible for two tasks.

The first task required the matching of district jobs to an appropriate benchmark which produced the results shown (see Pilot Group 1: Second Round of Matching).

The second task required a review of the ratings of the provincial benchmarks with the following outcomes:

• The ratings and descriptions of 69 provincial benchmarks were reviewed
• On average each district recommended changes to 19 benchmarks.

Pilot 2 – Work Completed To Date

Most recently, beginning February 2021, a great deal of work has taken place with the Pilot 2 districts/locals:

• District/local job evaluation committee members (approximately 65 individuals) attended JE training and matching workshops
• Each district set a deadline for completing the matching assignment and submitting results with dates ranging from beginning of March to the end of June
• At the time of publication, 9 of 10 districts had completed the matching assignment:
  • 6 completed the assignment several weeks ahead of schedule
  • 3 completed the assignment on their scheduled due date
  • The 1 remaining district will submit their results by the end of June.
• 459 active jobs have been matched, with 59 remaining.

Next Steps

Following receipt of data from Pilot 2, the Job Evaluation Steering Committee will finalize the provincial benchmarks and ratings and will address final modifications to the job evaluation plan, such as reviewing job matches identified by the pilot districts, rating jobs not matched, and determining point weighting. After these steps are complete, the Steering Committee will determine a process for inclusion of remaining districts and locals in the province. It is anticipated that the work on the benchmarks, ratings and plan will be completed in late Fall 2021.

Pay Adjustment Process
The 2019-2022 Provincial Framework Agreement provided a commitment that “The disbursement of available JE funds shall commence by January 2, 2020 or as mutually agreed.” The Steering Committee acknowledges that implementation of the job evaluation plan will be retroactive to January 2, 2020 within the funding provided under the PFA.

Technical Support

The Steering Committee has retained a technical support person to create a centralized data reporting and collection system for the provincial job evaluation project. This resource will save countless project hours by providing the ability for school districts to directly populate job evaluation data and otherwise providing a critical tool for effective and efficient data gathering. Once this data is compiled, the Steering Committee will be able to accurately project and communicate a timeline for JE implementation and disbursement of funds. We envision that the database developed can also be used as a tool for provincial JE in the future.

NAME THAT APP… PLEASE!

“Provincial Job Evaluation Database Application,” now that’s a mouthful! So we’re asking you to send us your suggestion for a name. We know you’ll have great ideas.

Let’s explain a bit. As the Provincial Job Evaluation project expands from seven pilot districts to seventeen and we start planning for the rollout across the province it is extremely obvious we need an easy to use database. We need a simple and robust way to manage the job data. We need to track the matching and ratings of jobs. And, we need to communicate that information back-and-forth between the districts and the Provincial Steering Committee.

It’s a complex process. We will be processing job data from sixty school districts and sixty-nine Union locals, and we estimate addressing upwards of 3,600 job descriptions. Every job will be reviewed and matched to one of the provincial benchmarks, and we estimate that potentially 5% of jobs may be unique and require a rating. That’s a lot to manage.

So, we are building an App that will streamline communications and efficiently manage all that information. It must be user-friendly, and easy and quick to use. Each district will login to the App to add, update, and match their jobs to the provincial benchmarks. The Provincial Steering Committee will access the data to confirm and review matches, and rate unique jobs.

It’s not just about data it is about making the job evaluation process easy and quick to do. The whole process will be simplified with our new App.

Be creative and tell us what name suggestion you have for the provincial App. In our next communique we’ll announce the new name and creator. And, if your suggestion is chosen, we will give you full credit embedded in the App. Your creativity will be immortalized. Send your App name suggestion to pcoombes@cupe.ca.

Provincial Job Evaluation Steering Committee Members:

Chris Losito – CUPE Staff

Jane Massy – CUPE, Local 947

Paul Simpson – CUPE, Local 379 & President of K-12 Presidents Council

Warren Williams – CUPE 15

Ranjit Bharaj – BCPSEA

Maureen Carradice – BCPSEA

Kevin Black – School District 50 (Haida Gwaii) and SD 91 (Nechako Lakes)

Royce Norum – School District 57 (Prince George)

Advisors:

Peter Coombes – CUPE Staff Advisor

Harpinder Sandhu – CUPE Staff Advisor

Jackie Bonsal – BCPSEA Staff Advisor

Joe Strain – BCPSEA Advisor

Committee Support:

Stephanie Loo – BCPSEA

Questions

Should you have any questions, please contact Chris Losito (CUPE) at closito@cupe.ca or Maureen Carradice (BCPSEA) at maureenc@bcpsea.bc.ca.

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