According to the Ontario Pay Equity legislation 4 categories or Factors must be evaluated for each Job Class, these are Skill, Effort, Responsibility and Working Conditions. Each Factor may consist of several Sub Factors. These sub factors are related to one of the 4 required Factors.  For example, the factor Effort may be broken down into sub factors Physical Effort and Mental and Sensory Effort.  The 4 main Factors always are the same (to be compliant) but the sub factors can be customized for your organization. In the Compensation Tool, Sub Factors and Factors may be used interchangeably to refer to sub factors, generally the only place in the tool which refers to the 4 required Factors is in the Point Table so that a proper Pay Equity Plan document can be created. Hence unless the tool or support documentation explicitly refers to the 4 required Factors, it can be assumed that any reference to Factors and Sub Factors are referring to the same items.