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The Evalio methodology

Four domains. Twelve subcriteria. One governed route from evidence to an approved grade.

Every domain and every subcriterion is explained on this page, in full, in plain language — including what evidence legitimately informs it and the specific mistake it exists to prevent. What remains confidential is the mechanics that convert an assessment into a grade.

4

evaluation domains

12

subcriteria, three per domain

5

descriptive anchors per subcriterion

G4–G22

the Evalio grade spine

Architecture

The structure of an Evalio evaluation.

Each domain answers a different question about the role. They are separate domains rather than factors inside one another because roles routinely carry one demand without the others, and blending them loses exactly the distinction that matters.

Role Scope & Accountability

How far does this role reach, and what is it answerable for?

  • Breadth of Role Scope
  • Level of Decision Responsibility
  • Responsibility for People, Budget, or Assets

Problem Solving & Judgment

What kind of thinking does this role actually require?

  • Complexity of Problems Solved
  • Depth of Analysis Required
  • Judgment Required When Direction Is Unclear

Stakeholder Influence & Interaction

Who must this role bring along, and how hard is that?

  • Complexity of Internal Collaboration
  • Level of External Interaction
  • Need to Influence Others

Business Impact

What happens to the organisation if this role gets it wrong?

  • Size of Business Impact
  • Difficulty of Reversing Decisions
  • Contribution to Business Direction
Four domains, three subcriteria each — twelve subcriteria in total, each assessed against five descriptive anchors. The domains are shown in their canonical order, which does not indicate relative importance. How an assessment becomes a grade is protected methodology and is not shown.
Domain 1 of 4

Role Scope & Accountability

How far does this role reach, and what is it answerable for?

Why this is a domain of its own

Scope, authority, and resources are three different things, and roles routinely carry one without the others. A regional coordinator may span twelve countries with almost no decision latitude; a small-team lead may hold real budget authority. Assessing them separately stops one from standing in for the other.

Breadth of Role Scope

How wide the organisational environment is within which the role operates — the span of work, teams, functions, or entities it genuinely covers.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Organisation or business-unit scope
  • Geographic reach
  • Functional breadth
  • Operating scale
  • Breadth of processes or services governed
  • Position within the organisational architecture

The discipline guard

Scope must be established from evidence about the role, not inferred from the job title. A grand title over a narrow remit is one of the most common sources of grade inflation.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Level of Decision Responsibility

The nature and level of the decisions entrusted to the role, and how independently it is expected to take them.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Degree of autonomy
  • Policy or framework constraints
  • Approval authority
  • Escalation requirements
  • Latitude to determine action
  • Authority over standards, priorities, or direction

The discipline guard

Formal decision authority is distinguished from informal influence. Influence is assessed in the stakeholder domain; it is not counted twice as authority here.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Responsibility for People, Budget, or Assets

The organisational resources the role is genuinely answerable for — people, money, assets, or the processes and risks it owns.

Evidence that may inform it

  • People responsibility
  • Budget or cost responsibility
  • Revenue or commercial responsibility
  • Asset responsibility
  • Process or service ownership
  • Technology, data, or risk ownership

The discipline guard

Headcount alone does not determine role value. A large team performing routine work is a different accountability from a small team owning enterprise-critical risk.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Domain 2 of 4

Problem Solving & Judgment

What kind of thinking does this role actually require?

Why this is a domain of its own

Difficulty, analytical depth, and judgment under uncertainty are distinct demands. A role can face highly complex problems with excellent data and clear precedent, or straightforward problems with no precedent at all. Collapsing these into one judgment loses the distinction that matters most at senior levels.

Complexity of Problems Solved

The variety, interconnectedness, and difficulty of the issues the role must address.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Recurrence versus novelty
  • Number of interdependent variables
  • Cross-functional consequences
  • Structural versus transactional problems
  • Degree of conflicting information
  • Breadth of potential solutions

The discipline guard

Volume of work is not complexity. A high-throughput role handling many similar cases is busy, not necessarily complex.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Depth of Analysis Required

The depth of analysis, interpretation, diagnosis, modelling, or synthesis the role must perform before it can act.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Use of established procedures
  • Interpretation of data
  • Diagnosis of root causes
  • Scenario modelling
  • Integration of multiple evidence sources
  • Development of new frameworks or approaches

The discipline guard

Analytical demand is not the same as academic qualification. A required degree is an entry condition, not evidence of the analysis the role performs.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Judgment Required When Direction Is Unclear

The degree to which the role must reach sound decisions when evidence, precedent, or outcomes are uncertain.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Availability of policy or precedent
  • Completeness of available evidence
  • Time pressure
  • Uncertainty of consequences
  • Need to balance competing objectives
  • Requirement for professional or strategic judgment

The discipline guard

Ambiguity must be a genuine feature of the role, not a symptom of a badly written job description or an organisation that has not decided who owns what.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Domain 3 of 4

Stakeholder Influence & Interaction

Who must this role bring along, and how hard is that?

Why this is a domain of its own

In matrix, platform, and cross-functional organisations, a great deal of the real work is achieving alignment without the authority to compel it. Evalio explicitly elevates this to a domain of its own rather than treating it as a secondary attribute of accountability.

Complexity of Internal Collaboration

The range and difficulty of the internal relationships the role must navigate in order to succeed.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Number and diversity of internal stakeholder groups
  • Cross-functional dependencies
  • Matrix relationships
  • Conflicting interests
  • Seniority of stakeholders
  • Need to create alignment without direct authority

The discipline guard

Attending many meetings is not stakeholder complexity. What counts is the difficulty of reaching alignment and the consequence of failing to.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Level of External Interaction

The nature and consequence of the role's relationships beyond the organisation.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Customers
  • Regulators
  • Investors
  • Partners and suppliers
  • Government bodies
  • Communities
  • Industry or professional bodies

The discipline guard

External visibility alone does not establish higher job value. What matters is the nature of the interaction and what turns on it.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Need to Influence Others

The purpose, complexity, sensitivity, and influence required in the role's communication — from informing, through explaining and negotiating, to shaping commitment.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Providing information
  • Explaining complex matters
  • Negotiating
  • Resolving conflict
  • Persuading decision-makers
  • Representing the organisation
  • Shaping stakeholder understanding or commitment

The discipline guard

Communication demand is a property of the role, not of the person in it. Confidence, presentation style, and personality are not evidence.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Domain 4 of 4

Business Impact

What happens to the organisation if this role gets it wrong?

Why this is a domain of its own

Consequence is what makes a decision worth governing. Evalio assesses not only how large an impact a role can have, but how easily that impact can be undone — because a recoverable mistake and a permanent one are not the same accountability.

Size of Business Impact

The breadth and magnitude of the organisational consequences associated with the role.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Financial results
  • Customers
  • Employees
  • Operations
  • Risk and compliance
  • Reputation
  • Organisational capability
  • Strategic outcomes

The discipline guard

Direct accountability, shared contribution, and advisory influence are distinguished. Proximity to a large number is not the same as accountability for it.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Difficulty of Reversing Decisions

How easily the consequences of the role's decisions can be corrected, reversed, or recovered from.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Cost of reversal
  • Time required to recover
  • Regulatory consequences
  • Customer or employee harm
  • Reputational consequences
  • Lock-in effects
  • Long-term organisational commitments

The discipline guard

Reversibility is assessed on the decision's consequences, not on how difficult the decision felt to make. Within Evalio's architecture this is treated as a first-class subcriterion, because two roles with the same financial impact carry different accountability when one can correct course in a week and the other has committed the organisation for a decade.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Contribution to Business Direction

How strongly the role helps shape longer-term direction, positioning, capability, and value creation.

Evidence that may inform it

  • Translation of strategy into execution
  • Formation of enterprise priorities
  • Organisational transformation
  • Long-term capability building
  • Portfolio or operating-model choices
  • Sustainable competitive or public-value contribution

The discipline guard

Strategic language in a job description is not evidence of strategic contribution. Nearly every senior job description claims it; the evidence must show the role genuinely shapes direction rather than executing a direction set elsewhere.

Assessed against five descriptive anchors running from the narrowest to the broadest expression of this demand. The anchor descriptions are written in the language of work, so a reviewer can test the selection against the evidence rather than against a number.

Organisational scale

The same title is not the same job in a different organisation.

Organisational scale is a governing context recorded on the evaluation before any role is examined. It bounds the accountability that role evidence can plausibly support, so that global comparability survives contact with organisations of very different size and complexity.

Scale 1

Startup

Early-stage or startup organisation. Roles are broad by necessity, titles run ahead of scope, and the whole organisation is often within one person's reach.

Scale 2

Small Enterprise

Established small enterprise. Functions have become real, senior functional leadership is credible, and structure has started to formalise.

Scale 3

Medium Enterprise

Mid-market or regional enterprise. Multiple business units or geographies, layered management, and genuine enterprise-scale leadership roles.

Scale 4

Large Enterprise / Group

Large corporation or group entity. Group governance, portfolio decisions, and roles whose consequences extend across markets.

What determines the scale applied

Scale is assessed from an approved combination of factors. It is not read off an employee count.

  • Workforce size
  • Economic scale
  • Operating complexity
  • Geographic reach
  • Regulatory environment
  • Business-model complexity
  • Organisational structure
  • Customer or service scale

Why scale is a governing context, not a multiplier

A role with the same title can carry materially different accountability, consequence, stakeholder complexity, and strategic reach in organisations of different scale and complexity. A Head of Finance in a forty-person company and a Head of Finance in a global group are not the same job, and no amount of care in reading the job description will reveal that on its own.

Scale is not an employee-count multiplier

Scale is assessed from an approved combination of factors, not from headcount alone. A highly regulated, capital-intensive business of eight hundred people may present greater operating and governance complexity than a lightly regulated business of five thousand.

Scale does not inflate every role

Being a large organisation does not raise the value of every job within it. Scale sets the range of accountability that is plausible; the evaluation must still be supported by role-specific evidence. Many roles in a large group are graded exactly where their counterparts in a mid-market business would be.

Scale is recorded, not assumed

The scale applied is part of the evaluation record. A later reviewer can see which organisational context was used and challenge it, rather than having to reverse-engineer it from the result.

Evidence to grade

Seventeen steps, and only one of them produces an authorised grade.

Publishing the route is itself a control. It makes visible where accountability sits, which steps AI supports, and which step no automated system may perform.

From role evidence to an approved gradeStatic information

Show that a grade is the output of a governed route with human approval, not a calculation performed on a job title.

  1. Organisational contextScale recorded first
  2. Role evidenceNot the title
  3. Gaps and contradictionsSurfaced, not inferred
  4. Assessment across twelve subcriteria
  5. Confidence postureThin evidence lowers it
  6. CalibrationComparable roles
  7. Human reviewCan return it
  8. Approved gradeNamed human approves

An Evalio grade is produced through a governed route. Organisational scale is recorded before any role is examined. Structured role evidence is collected — the work as genuinely required and performed, not the job title. Missing and contradictory evidence is surfaced rather than quietly inferred. Each of the twelve subcriteria is assessed against its descriptive anchors, and the resulting confidence posture reflects the strength of the evidence. The result is calibrated against comparable roles, examined by a qualified human reviewer who can return it, and only then approved by an accountable human. AI supports the analysis at every step and cannot approve a grade. Market pricing is a separate step that follows approval; an approved grade is not a salary range.

  1. Organisational context is established

    Organisational scale, operating model, structure, and regulatory environment are recorded before any role is looked at, so that context is an input rather than a later adjustment.

    Evalio practitioner

  2. Role evidence is collected

    Structured evidence about the role as it is genuinely required and performed — not only the job description on file.

    Client

  3. Job-title ambiguity is challenged

    Titles are tested against the evidence. Where a title implies scope the evidence does not support, that gap is raised rather than absorbed.

    Evalio practitioner

  4. Missing and contradictory evidence is identified

    Gaps and internal contradictions are surfaced explicitly. This is where AI support does most of its useful work, and where a silent inference would do the most damage.

    AI Companion

  5. Evidence is mapped to domains and subcriteria

    Each of the twelve subcriteria is assessed against its five descriptive anchors, with the supporting evidence attached to the assessment.

    Evalio practitioner

  6. Confidence and evidence sufficiency are assessed

    Thin or conflicting evidence lowers stated confidence. The evaluation says what it does not know instead of presenting a uniform certainty it has not earned.

    Platform

  7. A preliminary evaluation is generated

    A first result, explicitly labelled preliminary. It is a position to examine, not an answer to accept.

    Platform

  8. Relationship and consistency checks are performed

    The result is tested against the rest of the structure: reporting relationships, adjacent roles, and internal logic that ought to hold.

    Platform

  9. Comparable roles are calibrated

    Roles of comparable work are compared against comparable standards, so that consistency is demonstrated rather than assumed.

    Evalio practitioner

  10. A qualified human reviewer examines the result

    A named reviewer examines the evidence, the assessment, and the rationale — and can reject or return it.

    Evalio practitioner

  11. Client review and challenge are recorded

    The client's challenge is part of the record, not correspondence that disappears into an inbox.

    Client

  12. Conflicts and exceptions are resolved through governance

    Disagreements and genuine exceptions are resolved through a defined route with a decision owner, and the resolution is recorded.

    Governance

  13. The authorised grade is approved

    An accountable human approves. This step cannot be performed by AI, and approval is what turns an evaluated result into an authorised grade.

    Governance

  14. The result is linked to job architecture

    The approved grade takes its place in the job architecture, connecting to families, functions, and career structure.

    Platform

  15. Market-pricing readiness is assessed separately

    Whether the role is ready to be priced against market evidence is a distinct question, asked and answered separately. A grade is not a salary range.

    Evalio practitioner

  16. The governed record is preserved

    Evidence, assessment, confidence, challenge, approval, and rationale are preserved in the Decision Room as the governed system of record.

    Platform

  17. Later evidence changes trigger revalidation

    When the role or its context changes, the evaluation is revalidated through the same governed route. An authorised grade is never silently mutated.

    Governance
Evaluation states

Nine states, and they are not interchangeable.

A great deal of damage is done by circulating a preliminary result as though it were an approved grade, or an approved grade as though it were a salary. Evalio names each state and what it does not authorise.

The nine Evalio evaluation states, what each one means, and what each one does not authorise.
StateWhat it meansWhat it does not authorise
Role hypothesisAn initial working view of what the role appears to be, before evidence has been established.Any comparison, communication, or decision.
Indicative bandA broad range the role is likely to fall within, useful for early planning conversations.A grade, a structure placement, or a pay conversation.
Preliminary evaluationA first result produced from the evidence available, before consistency checks and calibration.Circulation as a grade, or comparison against other roles.
Evaluated resultA complete assessment across all twelve subcriteria with its confidence posture stated.Use as an approved grade.
Calibrated resultAn evaluated result tested for consistency against comparable roles.Use as an approved grade.
Reviewed resultA calibrated result examined by a qualified human reviewer, with the review recorded.Implementation. Review is not approval.
Approved gradeThe authorised Evalio grade, approved by an accountable human and recorded with its full evidence lineage.A salary, a salary range, or a pay change.
Market-pricing readinessA separate determination that the role and its evidence support comparison against market data.A pay recommendation.
Salary recommendationA separate, separately governed output that draws on the approved grade, market evidence, pay policy, and affordability.An individual pay decision, which remains the accountable manager's and the organisation's to make.
Emphasis

What Evalio's architecture puts in the foreground.

These are statements about Evalio's own design choices. They are not claims that other methodologies neglect these concerns — establishing that would require comparative evidence Evalio does not have.

Organisational scale is an explicit, recorded context

Scale is named on the evaluation and bounds what role evidence can plausibly support, rather than being applied as an unstated adjustment.

Stakeholder complexity is a domain, not a footnote

Evalio explicitly elevates internal collaboration, external interaction, and the need to influence others into a full domain, because in matrix and platform organisations this is where much of the work sits.

Reversibility is assessed in its own right

Within Evalio's architecture, how hard a decision is to undo is a subcriterion of its own, alongside how large its impact is.

Job value, person, performance, and pay stay separate

The architecture is built so that individual performance and current salary cannot enter the assessment of job size.

Evidence sufficiency and confidence are visible outputs

The evaluation states what it does not know. Thin evidence produces stated lower confidence rather than a confident-looking answer.

Outputs are written to be read by decision-makers

The reviewer, the accountable executive, and the practitioner read the same record, in language that does not require a specialist to translate.

Human challenge, calibration, and approval are structural

Review and approval are steps in the governed route with named owners, not courtesies extended after the result is produced.

Evidence lineage persists and versions are auditable

The record shows which evidence, method version, and organisational context produced a result, so a later reviewer can distinguish a genuine change from a silent one.

The evaluation connects to the decisions that follow

Architecture, market positioning, pay structures, internal equity, workforce cost, and planning are connected to the same record rather than restarting from a spreadsheet.

Region-aware without abandoning comparability

One global architecture, interpreted and calibrated for regional context, so local relevance does not cost cross-border comparability.

AI supports the analysis and cannot approve the outcome

Doctrine constrains the Companion to preparation, challenge, and explanation. It cannot approve a grade or override a reviewer.

AI in job evaluation

The Companion prepares the analysis. A named human owns the outcome.

AI is genuinely useful in job evaluation — it is very good at spotting what is missing from a set of role evidence and what contradicts what. It is not permitted to decide.

What the Companion may do

  • Structure role evidence into the domains and subcriteria
  • Identify missing information and ask for it
  • Detect contradictions between sources
  • Explain what a criterion means and what evidence would satisfy it
  • Summarise the evidence gathered
  • Generate bounded hypotheses for a reviewer to test
  • Compare scenarios
  • Highlight the limits of the available evidence
  • Assist reviewers in their examination
  • Draft a decision rationale for human revision

What the Companion must not do

  • Invent evidence
  • Infer a final grade from a job title
  • Approve a grade
  • Override a reviewer
  • Conceal uncertainty
  • Use an employee's performance to inflate job size
  • Treat an incumbent's salary as proof of job value
  • Expose protected methodology mechanics
  • Silently alter an authorised evaluation

Every material AI output carries attribution, versioning, and evidence lineage, and remains subject to human authority.

Review AI governance boundaries
Protected methodology

What stays confidential, and why that does not reduce transparency.

Transparency means a reviewer can see the evidence, the assessment, the reasoning, the confidence, and the authority behind a result. It does not require publishing the mechanics that would let the method be gamed.

Published in full

  • All four domains and what each one assesses
  • All twelve subcriteria and the evidence that informs each
  • The discipline guard behind every subcriterion
  • That each subcriterion is assessed against five descriptive anchors
  • Organisational scale, its tiers, and how it is assessed
  • The full seventeen-step governed route from evidence to approved grade
  • The nine evaluation states and what each does not authorise
  • The Evalio grade spine, G4–G22
  • What AI may and may not do at every step

Confidential by design

  • No domain or subcriterion weightings are exposed.
  • No conversion between an anchor selection and a numeric value is exposed.
  • No grade-boundary values or grade-boundary mathematics are exposed.
  • No calibration constants or internal consistency rules are exposed.
  • No evaluator instructions that would allow the method to be replicated or gamed are exposed.
  • No detail sufficient to reverse engineer the methodology is exposed.

This boundary is a fairness control as much as an intellectual property one. A published weighting is an invitation to write job descriptions that score well rather than describe the work.

After the grade

An approved grade is the start of the next decision, not the end of the process.

Job architecture, market evidence, salary structure, internal equity, workforce cost, and the executive decision each follow — and each is a separate governed judgment.

From job evaluation to workforce decisionsStatic information

Show that job evaluation is the foundation the rest of the reward and workforce estate depends on, and that each step is a separate governed judgment.

  1. Job evaluationRelative job value
  2. Job architectureFamilies and careers
  3. Market evidenceSeparate activity
  4. Salary structureA policy choice
  5. Internal equity
  6. Workforce cost and plan
  7. Executive decisionAccountable human

Job evaluation is the foundation the rest of the estate rests on. Relative job value gives job architecture its coordinate system of families, functions, and career structure. Market evidence is gathered as a separate activity and interpreted against that architecture rather than replacing it. Salary structure design is then an explicit policy choice about positioning, range width, overlap, and progression. Internal equity, workforce cost, budgets, and workforce plans follow from the same record, and an accountable human takes the executive decision. Each step is a distinct judgment: a grade is not a salary range, and market data is an input to pay rather than a measure of internal job value.

Job architectureMarket and reward decisionsGovernance and Decision Room
Cross-framework references

Reading an Evalio grade against a framework you already operate.

Most large organisations already carry a legacy framework and need to talk about both at once. Evalio publishes an indicative reference view for that conversation — and is precise about what it is not.

Approximate and contextual

A reference view is an indicative communication aid expressed as a range. It is not a certified conversion and not a point-to-point equivalence.

Dependent on scale and evidence

Where a role sits in any framework depends on organisational scale and the quality of the role evidence. The same Evalio grade can correspond to different external bands in different organisations.

Subject to expert calibration

A reference view supports a conversation between practitioners. It does not replace calibration, review, or professional judgment.

The Evalio grade remains the Evalio result

The approved Evalio grade is the primary output. The reference view is context alongside it, never a substitute for it.

External names are used for market context only

Korn Ferry, WTW, Mercer, and Aon names and framework names are their owners' trademarks, used descriptively so that organisations already operating those frameworks can orient themselves.

No affiliation or endorsement

Evalio is not affiliated with, licensed by, endorsed by, or derived from any external provider. A reference view is not an official mapping by that provider, is not a substitute for a licensed evaluation under that provider's method, and does not guarantee that two roles evaluated under different systems are the same. It is not a salary-market conversion table.

Review framework equivalences
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