Every HR professional is acutely aware of the complexities involved in traditional job leveling, including the extensive time and resources required to ensure there is both fairness and consistency across the organization.
Clients have shared with us the range of challenges related to job leveling and job architecture. In turn, that has served as a call to action for WTW to make this process better. We also wanted to combine the appropriate use of artificial intelligence with human expertise to transform a notoriously labor-intensive process into an efficient, high-quality exercise.
Long story short, the core message we received regarding job leveling was straightforward: Modernize it.
Traditional job-leveling frameworks have played a vital role for HR, yet often have fallen short in adapting to the fast-paced changes in modern work environments. Clients shared that they frequently find themselves expending significant effort on the manual analysis of job descriptions against theoretical models. While an important process in every organization, this work has diverted valuable time and resources that could be better spent on strategic initiatives.
As companies change how they operate and roles evolve, it is clear we need a quicker, more adaptable way to evaluate jobs without sacrificing the clarity needed for complex roles.
To streamline and standardize the job-leveling process while also helping clients conserve valuable resources, we developed a job-leveling solution that integrates AI technology with our global methodology.
The result employs WTW’s Global Grading System (GGS) methodology, which is a validated, globally used framework that rigorously ensures precise and equitable role assessments. The AI-powered job leveling module that the team constructed uses advanced large language models (LLMs) to analyze job documentation.
The combination of the GGS methodology and LLM technology delivers accurate, comprehensive and consistent evaluations. Using advanced LLMs, the system analyzes job documentation with impressive accuracy. The strength of the GGS methodology, combined with LLMs, ensures thorough and consistent evaluations for each role. With a guided, workflow-driven approach informed by WTW’s expert consultants, each step is structured to support the user, enhancing clarity while leveraging AI to back human expertise.
As more organizations consider how best to integrate AI into their internal processes and external deliverables, it is becoming clearer that AI outputs are only as good as the information being used to inform responses. Feedback from our clients is that the core strength of GGS and its AI solution is the combination of AI efficiency and human judgment.
While AI adeptly undertakes the initial data processing and analysis for job leveling, human oversight injects essential context and nuance into job evaluations. By employing a human-in-the-loop model, every AI-generated evaluation is subject to thorough review and validation by HR teams.
This combination ensures that AI manages the aspects of voluminous primary data processing, while human experts — you and your HR team — refine the evaluation outcomes and ensure they resonate with your organization’s internal reality.
Now layer transparency into this approach. GGS with AI incorporates “explainable AI,” effectively demystifying the rationale behind job evaluations and highlighting areas of uncertainty. With this, you and your HR team can focus on where your expertise is most impactful, resulting in informed and credible discussions about role assessments.
At the end of the day, the system supports decisions that are evidence-based, documented and defensible.
To ensure that we support fairness and objectivity in job evaluations, GGS with AI incorporates preventive measures against bias. The system focuses strictly on evaluating job roles — not the individuals occupying them — to help eliminate personal biases that can inadvertently enter the evaluation process.
The robustness of GGS with AI has been vigorously tested in real-world conditions to validate its alignment with professional HR judgments. Through a curated validation dataset, our job leveling experts have benchmarked the system across an array of roles to verify its reliability under scrutiny.
Additionally, clients across diverse sectors participated in live trials and confirmed the system’s practical applicability. They also provided critical feedback that informed refinements and enhanced functionality.
For organizations aiming to improve the objectivity of their job leveling process, refine operational efficiencies and optimize resource allocation, GGS with AI presents tangible benefits for its users:
It is critical for today’s HR and compensation professionals to keep pace with changes in the marketplace, employee expectations, boards of directors’ questions and stakeholder assessments. Organizations have the opportunity for transformative change in the approach they take to job evaluations by bringing together the best of AI technology and human insight. Together, the process is smoother, fairer and more transparent.
