18
Joint Job Evaluation Guidebook
Subfactor 11:
accountability
- impact of actions and
d
ecisions
Purpose: To rate the impact of actions and decisions for which the job is accountable.
CONSIDERATIONS:
All actions or decisions have some impact on the job, work unit, department or the University. Consider only
those areas of responsibility for which the position is accountable for any consequences. Assume that the
action or decision is based on available information and that care and judgement are taken to avoid error.
Accountability does not mean consequence of error.
Areas of responsibility for actions and decisions may include financial expenditures, revenue and
accountability, personnel matters, legal matters, student programs and services, physical plant, material and
resource usage, or may have an impact on the image of the work unit, department or the University.
In some cases the work unit is the department, in others (e.g. Accounting), the department contains individual
work units (e.g. Payroll, Pensions, Fees, etc.) In the Library, for example, a single work unit is Copiers within
the department of Access Services within the library (the equivalent of a faculty.) Work units do not have to be
located together geographically. In some organizations, work sites are spread over the campus.
DEFINITIONS: Actions or decisions may:
cause changes which have a
limited impact on a program,
service, policy, or the image of
the work unit, department or the
cause changes which have a
significant impact on a program,
service, policy, or the image of the
work unit, department or the
cause changes which have a
substantial impact on a
program, service, policy, or the
image of the work unit,
department or the University
• change limited aspects of
workload of those impacted;
reassignment of duties is not
required
• change overall work load
and/or duties of personnel as a short-
term or long-term consequence
• change overall workload and
duties resulting in
reassignment, increase or
decrease of personnel
have little or no financial
consequence either as
expenditure or labour cost
have a significant financial
consequence on either expenditure
patterns or labour costs
have a substantial financial or
legal consequence
Examples of duties which require accountability for actions and decisions:
A decision to have outgoing mail pre-sorted in departments before pick-up may have a moderate impact
within the mail services work area. The same decision may have a minor impact campus wide, involving a
comparatively small impact on individual departments.
A decision in accounting to move toward negative invoicing may have a moderate impact both in a single work
area within accounting and campus wide, involving a greater impact on those departments with many
financial transactions.