United States

Office of Personnel Management

Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness

Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions

April 1986

No. 08-02

Standard:	Job Grading Standard for Supervisors (WS)

Factor:	Level of Work Supervised

Issue:	Determination of grade level supervised

Although there have been several revisions of the Job Grading Standard for Federal Wage System Supervisors, the discussion in this article is still valid.

Identification of the Classification Issue

The issue arose in the consideration of an appeal concerning the job of Automotive Worker Foreman. The appellant supervised five subordinates performing work at the WG-08 level, and personally performed nonsupervisory work at the WG-10 journeyman level. The appellant requested that he be credited with supervising WG-10 work based on the highest level of the shop's completed repair work.

Resolution

The Office of Personnel Management decided that the supervisor's personally performed nonsupervisory WG-10 journeyman level work could be used only to evaluate the nonsupervisory part of his job. However, it could not properly be used to determine the level of work that he supervised.

The supervisory job grading factor, Level of Work Supervised, is intended to measure the level and complexity of the work operations supervised and its effect on the difficulty and responsibility of supervision. This level is usually the grade of the highest level nonsupervisory employees who are supervised. In certain very unusual situations, the difficulty and complexity of the overall work operations supervised are not accurately reflected in the grades of any of the subordinate jobs. In these situations, the level supervised may be determined by constructing a grade reflecting the work product produced with prominent subordinate staff involvement. However, in this appeal case, the subordinate staff was not prominently involved in the work of the shop above the WG-08 level. Therefore, the constructed grade approach did not justify use of WG-10 as the level supervised.

The appellant's job was classified as Automotive Worker Foreman, WS-5823-08, which represented a higher pay rate than the nonsupervisory full performance WG-10 work that he personally performed.