PointFactors vs Aon (JobLink): Job Evaluation Methods Compared

PointFactors vs Aon (JobLink): Job Evaluation Methods Compared

If you are shortlisting job evaluation methods, Aon will come up — usually alongside Korn Ferry's Hay method and Mercer's IPE. Aon's offering is not the one people expect, though. Search "Aon global grading" and you will land on pages describing a 25-grade system that Aon does not own. What Aon actually sells is JobLink™, a five-factor point-factor method that plugs directly into the Radford McLagan compensation database.

That distinction matters, because the two products solve different halves of the same problem. This comparison covers how JobLink works, what its factors and weights actually are, where the Radford linkage helps and where it locks you in, and how the whole package stacks up against running point-factor evaluation yourself in PointFactors.

TL;DR

• Aon's job evaluation method is JobLink™ — a point-factor system with five factors: Knowledge (30%), Impact (30%), Problem Solving (15%), Interaction (15%), Accountability (10%).
• The Global Grading System (GGS) with up to 25 grades belongs to WTW, not Aon. If a vendor pitches you "Aon GGS," they are conflating two firms.
• JobLink's real differentiator is the Radford McLagan linkage: Aon's survey leveling framework is aligned to JobLink, so evaluation and market pricing share one spine. That is genuinely useful if you already buy Radford.
• Both JobLink and PointFactors are analytical, gender-neutral methods that satisfy equal-value scrutiny under the EU Pay Transparency Directive. Neither is "more compliant" than the other.
• The split is delivery model: Aon is licensed, consultant-trained, quote-priced, and audited annually by Aon. PointFactors is self-serve, published-price, and you own the factor weights.
• Choose Aon if you are a Radford subscriber wanting one integrated vendor. Choose PointFactors if you want to control the weights, see the arithmetic, and start this quarter.

What Aon's job evaluation method actually is

Aon's proprietary approach is JobLink™, described on Aon's job evaluation page as a modern system for assessing relative job size. It came out of Aon Hewitt and has been deployed across industries from single-country employers to global multinationals.

JobLink is a genuine point-factor method: you score each job against defined factors, the factors carry weights, and the weighted total produces a job size you can rank and grade. Aon also offers a career-levelling variant, and the two can run together — points-factor for benchmark roles, levelling descriptors for the rest.

The five JobLink factors and their weights

Aon publishes what it calls "power ratings" for each factor. From the Aon Hewitt JobLink brochure:

For non-office populations, Aon allows Working Conditions and Physical Activity to be exchanged in — a sensible accommodation for manufacturing, logistics, and field roles that most white-collar frameworks handle badly.

Two things stand out. First, Knowledge and Impact together carry 60% of the weight, which pushes the model toward scope and organizational reach. Second, Problem Solving sits at only 15%. Aon frames that as deliberate: senior individual contributors who never manage anyone still accrue value through Knowledge and Interaction rather than only through headcount. If your engineering or scientific population is large, that is a design choice worth understanding before you adopt it — and worth testing against your own compensable factor weighting.

Where "Aon global grading" comes from

Here is the clarification most comparison articles get wrong. The Global Grading System (GGS), a framework of up to 25 grades sized to organizational scale, is a WTW product. It is not Aon's. Aon and WTW attempted a merger in 2021 that was abandoned, and the two firms remain independent competitors.

Aon's global structure comes from a different direction: the Radford Global Job Level framework, built for technology and life sciences companies and organized into executive (E), management (M), professional (P), and support/specialist (S) tracks. Radford's approach deliberately merges individual contributors and managers into shared global grades where the market prices them equivalently — a pragmatic answer to the dual-ladder problem that Aon has written about since 2015.

So when someone asks about "Aon GGS," what they usually want is JobLink plus Radford levels. Those are two products, and knowing which one you are buying changes the conversation with the salesperson.

The Radford linkage: the real argument for Aon

Aon states that the Radford McLagan survey leveling framework is aligned to JobLink. In practice that means an evaluated job maps to a Radford level, which maps to survey cuts covering Aon's compensation database.

If you already subscribe to Radford — and most venture-backed tech and life sciences comp teams do — this collapses a step that normally causes trouble. Instead of evaluating internally and then separately matching jobs to survey codes, one framework carries you through both. Fewer translation errors, fewer arguments about whether "Senior Engineer II" is a P3 or a P4.

That integration is a legitimate advantage and I will not pretend otherwise. It is also the lock-in. Your internal hierarchy becomes shaped by one vendor's survey taxonomy, and re-pricing to a different survey later means re-mapping. Whichever method you use, keep the distinction clear between market pricing and job evaluation — they answer different questions, and a framework that fuses them can quietly let the market overwrite your internal logic.

Building a job architecture and not sure whether to start with evaluation or benchmarking? See how PointFactors scores jobs before you commit to a survey taxonomy.

Head to head: Aon JobLink vs PointFactors

Where Aon is the better answer

Be honest about this. Aon wins when you are a 10,000-person multinational with a Radford subscription, an existing consulting relationship, and a board that wants a Big Three name on the methodology. It wins when you need a consultant in the room to defuse a political fight between two business units over whose director role is bigger. And it wins when you genuinely want someone else to own the annual audit.

Aon's training-and-audit model is the product, not overhead. If your comp function is one person and you need a method that survives their departure, an externally maintained framework has real value.

Where PointFactors is the better answer

PointFactors wins on three things: control of the weights, visibility of the arithmetic, and time to value.

Control matters because factor weights encode your compensation philosophy. Aon's 30/30/15/15/10 split is defensible, but it is Aon's judgment about what work is worth, not yours. A research-intensive organization may want Problem Solving well above 15%. A frontline services business may want Working Conditions as a first-class factor rather than a swap-in. In PointFactors you set those weights, model the effect on the grade structure, and change them if the result does not reflect how your organization actually creates value. Start from our guide to compensable factors if you are designing a set from scratch.

Visibility matters because of who asks the questions now. When an employee invokes their right to know how their pay level was determined, "the system produced a level" is not an answer. A per-factor score with written rationale is. Every PointFactors evaluation exports as a full scoring record.

Speed matters because pay transparency deadlines do not move. Licensing, training, and rolling out a consultant-led framework takes a quarter or more. Scoring your first 50 benchmark jobs in PointFactors takes days.

Does either method satisfy pay transparency law?

Both do, and this is where marketing on all sides gets loose.

Directive (EU) 2023/970 requires employers to have pay structures based on objective, gender-neutral criteria, and gives workers the right to information about the criteria used to set pay and progression. Aon states plainly that JobLink satisfies the requirement for a gender-neutral analytical job evaluation methodology. PointFactors does too, for the same structural reason: both are analytical point-factor systems that score work, not people.

What actually determines whether you pass scrutiny is not the vendor. It is whether your factors avoid gendered proxies, whether you applied them consistently, and whether you can produce the evidence. A method with immaculate pedigree applied inconsistently across two business units will fail; a well-documented in-house framework applied rigorously will hold. Our guide to gender-neutral job evaluation covers the design traps in detail.

How Aon compares to Hay and Mercer IPE

Briefly, since most shortlists contain all three:

• Korn Ferry Hay weights Know-How, Problem Solving, and Accountability, with problem solving expressed as a percentage of know-how. It skews toward managerial scope. See our Hay methodology comparison.
• Mercer IPE uses Impact, Communication, Innovation, and Knowledge, with organization size as an input to the impact score. See our Mercer IPE comparison.
• Aon JobLink sits closest to Mercer conceptually — Impact-heavy, size-aware — but with a distinct Interaction factor and the Radford survey spine.

All three are point-factor variants. The differences in output are smaller than the differences in price, delivery model, and how much of the method you are allowed to change. If you want the full landscape, we compared seven platforms in our job evaluation software roundup.

Frequently asked questions

What is Aon's job evaluation method called?

JobLink™. It is Aon's proprietary point-factor job evaluation tool, developed out of Aon Hewitt, and it can be used as a pure points system, as a career-levelling framework, or as both together.

What are the JobLink factors?

Knowledge, Impact, Problem Solving, Interaction, and Accountability, weighted 30%, 30%, 15%, 15%, and 10% respectively. Working Conditions and Physical Activity can be substituted in for non-office roles.

Is the Global Grading System (GGS) an Aon product?

No. GGS, the framework of up to 25 grades, is WTW's. Aon's global leveling comes from the Radford Global Job Level framework, which is aligned to JobLink. The confusion is common because the two firms attempted a merger in 2021 that never completed.

Do I need a Radford subscription to use JobLink?

No, but the integration with Radford McLagan survey data is the main practical reason to prefer JobLink over other point-factor methods. Without it you are buying a competent five-factor system at consulting prices.

How much does Aon job evaluation cost?

Aon does not publish pricing; engagements are quoted and typically bundle tool licensing, user training, job analysis support, and optional annual audits. Expect a consulting-scale figure and a multi-week onboarding.

Can I change the JobLink factor weights?

Aon states that descriptors and wording can be adjusted to fit your organization's terminology. The factor weights are the method — changing them substantially would mean you are no longer running JobLink. If weight control is a priority, that argues for a configurable platform.

Is JobLink acceptable for EU pay transparency compliance?

Yes. Aon positions JobLink as a gender-neutral analytical job evaluation methodology, which is what Directive (EU) 2023/970 expects. So is any well-designed point-factor system, including PointFactors. Compliance turns on consistent application and documentation, not on the vendor's logo.

What if we already have Hay or Mercer grades?

You can re-evaluate into a new framework without discarding your existing structure. Score a sample of 30 to 50 benchmark jobs in the new method, compare the resulting order against your current grades, and investigate every job that moves more than one grade. Those disagreements are where your real problems live.

The bottom line

Aon JobLink is a solid five-factor point-factor method whose strongest argument is the Radford linkage. If you already buy Radford and want one vendor owning evaluation, leveling, and market data, it is a coherent choice — and the consultant-led training and annual audit model has real value for thin comp teams.

The trade is control, cost, and speed. You accept Aon's weighting of what work is worth, you pay consulting rates, and you wait through a rollout. For a growing number of comp teams, none of those trades is necessary. The method itself — weighted compensable factors, consistently scored, fully documented — is not proprietary. What you are really buying from a consultancy is confidence, and you can build that yourself if the tool shows its work.

Want to see how your jobs score before you sign a consulting contract? PointFactors runs the same point-factor logic with weights you control and a scoring record you can hand to an auditor, an employee, or a works council. Book a walkthrough or see pricing.

Justin Hampton is founder and CEO of PointFactors, an AI-powered point-factor job evaluation platform that helps compensation teams build defensible job architectures and pay structures.