To Disraeli's often cited quote that the three kinds of lies are "lies, damn lies, and statistics," I could add a fourth: job evaluations--or, at least, some job evaluations--or, at least, some job evaluations!

That is, although job evaluation is a process intended to reliably measure job worth, the procedures involved are often susceptible to individual subjectivity--and even manipulation. Thus intentional or unintentional moves along the way may skew the evaluation, deceive employees and others, or both.

I have no intention of encouraging deceit among job evaluators and personnel managers--quite the opposite, as a glance at the prescriptive list toward the end of this article will show. First, however, a list of job evaluation steps complete with the kinds of distortion--planned or unplanned--that can throw the entire process off and send pay equity out of the window.