Reward Design
Pay Transparency
F2F MEETING IN LONDON WITH LIVE-STREAM
As questions of fairness and equality, and diversity and inclusion in the workplace have been given greater emphasis, so have calls for employers to be more open about their pay practices. ‘Pay Transparency’ has now become a key issue for many organisations, whether positioned as a means to engage and built trust with employees, or as a route to boosting productivity, or as an intervention to support closing the gender pay gap.
Such transparency revolves around the extent to which employers are open about how and how much employees are paid. Until recently, an individual’s pay has been considered a private matter, about which few employers have shared the detail of their decision-making processes. However, emerging regulation including the EU Directive on Equal Pay and Pay Transparency will force the publication of salary ranges for jobs and give employees the right to request information about pay relativities.
The stated intention of the EU Directive is to highlight gender pay gaps and to encourage employers to take action. However, greater pay transparency will highlight potential inequities in a number of areas, not only those associated with gender. In many companies, pay structures are opaque and people are paid different rates for what are often perceived as similar roles. Any organisation that has unresolved pay issues, or ongoing disputes between groups of workers, could find itself having to release pay details to trade unions or groups of employees. This is likely to lead to greater demands for the correction of perceived historic inequalities.
EU member states have until 2026 to transpose the directive into domestic law, and those jurisdictions outside the EU are not obliged to adopt it. However, it is likely that the directive will set the tone for good practice on pay transparency, and employment lawyers are advising organisations to get ahead of the curve and prepare for pay transparency before being forced to. The concept of pay transparency does of course extend beyond the EU, and notably individual US states are developing their own (and often quite diverse) regulation. It transcends the global call for action on the elimination of pay discrimination on grounds of sex, which has been a legal requirement in many countries for decades.
By the time of this event, organisations for which the Directive’s measures are applicable will be 18 months into the three-year period set out for transposing the Directive’s provisions into national law.
We will therefore discuss the progress being made toward establishing pay transparency, but also how it is defined and what actions are being taken by our members and others – on a global basis.
Location
The Royal Air Force Club, 128 Piccadilly, London W1J 7PY
Elizabeth Graves
Employment Partner, Eversheds Sutherland
Elizabeth is an employment partner in the Human Resources Practice Group at Eversheds Sutherland. She joined in 2011 having worked in the employment, pensions and benefits team at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP for over 10 years. Elizabeth co-leads Eversheds Sutherland’s Global International Life Sciences sector team. She is described by Legal 500 as “a leading light in cross-border employment matters … clients describe her as ‘an exceptional lawyer – dependable and commercial with high emotional intelligence and good regulatory insight”. She is also ranked as an Acritas Star Lawyer. Elizabeth acts predominantly for clients in the life sciences, financial services and technology sectors. She is highly experienced in managing the employment aspects of cross-border M&A transactions and in managing day-to-day international employment advice for clients in multiple countries as well as major international projects. Her contentious workload involves the management of complex high-value employment tribunal litigation, often involving discrimination and/or whistle blowing. Elizabeth has also acted in a number of cases involving transfers of undertakings, including a £50m claim for failure to inform and consult. Elizabeth has completed secondments to two financial institutions and to one global media company as VP International Employment law. She is regularly quoted in the press and media and is the co-editor of Bloomsbury’s Financial Services – an Employment Practitioner’s Guide. She is a keen supporter of diversity, acting as a Gender Network Champion for Eversheds Sutherland.
Lucy Iremonger
Senior Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant, Mercer
Lucy is a senior diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consultant and leads Mercer’s UK Gender Pay Gap proposition. Lucy is a specialist in DEI and local pay gap compliance, and also has a background in reward consulting. Lucy advises UK and global companies at various points along their DEI journey. Lucy supports clients in embedding DEI across their employee value proposition, helping clients to understand and tackle pay gaps, develop inclusive benefits and design comprehensive DEI strategies and inclusive leadership journeys. Lucy graduated from the University of Oxford in Experimental Psychology and has a master’s in Occupational Psychology from the University of Leicester.
Sally Isaacs
Partner in Eversheds Sutherland Employment Group
Sally is a Partner in Eversheds Sutherland Employment Group. She has considerable experience of employment tribunal litigation and specialises in discrimination law, with particular emphasis on equal pay. Sally has been responsible for a number of high profile equal pay cases over the last 15 years including defending mass equal pay litigation. Sally’s contentious work also includes unfair dismissal, industrial relations issues and breach of contract claims.
Sally qualified in 2000, and has specialised in employment law her whole career. In addition to her contentious practice, Sally also gives advice in relation to non-contentious matters such as proposals to change terms and conditions of employment, strategic management of industrial relations issues, implementing new pay and grading structures, gender pay gap reporting and equal pay audits.
Sally has particular knowledge of the public sector (particularly local government and education) and has been recognised by the Legal 500.
Lucye Provera
Global Pay Equity Solution Manager, Mercer
Lucye is Mercer’s Global Pay Equity Solution Manager. She is an expert in pay equity, DEI and issues relating to pay transparency. Lucye has over 16 years of international rewards consulting experience working with clients across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In her current role, Lucye support clients across the world to assess pay equity and create strategies to improve the fairness of pay, in the short term through pay adjustments and in the long term through process interventions. With analytics and technology, Lucye works with clients to develop to better understand unexplainable pay gaps, address them, and communicate results – and, in that context, she also helps companies drive fairness and transparency more broadly, across the full employment proposition.
Lucye graduated from Georgetown with a degree in Classics and Economics as well as Executive Masters in Luxury Management from SDA Bocconi and ESSECS University.
Ruth Thomas
Chief Product Evangelist, Payscale
Ruth Thomas, co-founder at Curo Compensation Ruth pioneered the use of SaaS technology to transform traditional approaches to reward and drive fair pay. Following Curo’s acquisition by Payscale in 2021, Ruth now provides strategic thought leadership in her role as Chief Product Evangelist. She focuses on infusing pay equity across the product suite and elevating thought leadership presence. Ruth has been a leading voice in the campaign for pay equity and worked with global organisations to leverage technology to help them effectively optimise their reward strategy and deliver fair and transparent pay. She is a sought-after speaker, writer, and commentator on pay equity, compensation trends and the future of work. With over 30 years of international expertise in the management of compensation processes and the design of pay and benefit structures, salary progression systems and management incentive plans, her corporate experience includes Lloyds TSB Group, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Dow Jones Group and Credit Suisse.
