It was a huge pleasure to talk earlier this week, at the Marcus Evans Financial Services C&B conference, on Pay Transparency. We had a really interesting discussion and I thought I would take the opportunity to capture some of the key points here:
- There is strong awareness of the impact of the EU pay transparency rules. However, there isn’t full understanding of their scope. This is, in part, because individual country members need to adopt the legislation and its not clear how this will be implemented. The EU pay transparency rules are a minimum standard and countries can choose to set higher requirements. Additionally, reporting dates are unlikely to be aligned across 27 countries, creating further challenges for stretched Reward and HR teams.
- Starting an approach from scratch, to achieve pay transparency, is much easier than starting from “here”, with the legacies and data that companies hold. Commitment to pay equity runs deep for Compensation and Benefits professionals and there is a realistic recognition that pay transparency is not going to be easy to implement. However, the impact of the new rules aren’t effective EU-wide until the middle of 2026, giving organisations time to prepare; use their next few years’ pay review budgets and organise a strong communications approach for line managers, employees and candidates.
Thanks to everyone who attended for their valuable and insightful input to the discussions. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you about pay transparency.
I understand pay transparency well. I’m here to help if you need support.
