Building Trust through Pay Equity and Opportunity

Eva Jesmiatka, Senior Director Work, Rewards & Careers and Europe Lead on Pay & Career Equity, WTW

Eva Jesmiatka, Senior Director Work, Rewards & Careers and Europe Lead on Pay & Career Equity, WTW

Eva Jesmiatka is a senior Consultant and Pay Equity and Transparency SME, specializing in reward and talent projects. With expertise in pay equity, DEI, total rewards strategy, and talent management, she drives impactful transformations with strong client focus and stakeholder management skills.

Leading Work, Rewards & Careers in Europe

In my day-to-day client-facing role, I partner with my clients on their reward and talent agenda to enable them to attract, retain and engage their talent. I have a specific focus on pay equity and transparency, and I support my clients in becoming confident that they are delivering pay equity in their organization, ensure that they maintain pay equity and help them become more transparent on pay. The latter point in particular is a big focus since many of my clients have a need to become more transparent on pay when the EU Pay Transparency Directive comes into force. Within WTW, I lead our European Pay and Career Equity community. This community consists of reward, benefits, communication and change management experts who are all deeply focused on the pay equity and transparency agenda. Bringing these areas of expertise together allows us to bring our latest thinking to our clients when we help them progress on pay equity and transparency.

Aligning Equity in Pay and Opportunity

There are some common fundamentals that underpin the delivery of pay equity and career equity. Being confident in pay equity requires having clarity on what is classified as work of equal value and having clarity on how pay is managed and how pay decisions are made in the organization. We often find that when organizations have pay gaps, this may not be the result of (unconscious) bias, but rather the result of not having robust job levelling and architecture and/or not having full clarity on what factors are considered in pay decisions. You can only ensure consistency and fairness in application when everyone is clear on how to apply the system. The same core principles apply to career equity: having a career architecture that builds an understanding of the unique roles that exist in the organization and the skills and knowledge required is critically important, as this helps with identifying possible career paths. Having clarity on how to navigate and use this career architecture is a critical enabler. In addition, a clear and consistent understanding of how to navigate the system and having clear processes are equally important to support equitable career opportunities.

“Pay equity needs to become second-nature to all leaders, and something they take responsibility for, rather than being an annual review that’s conducted by HR”

Uncovering Hidden Pay Gaps with Analytics

Regression analysis is a well-known statistical method used for uncovering hidden pay gaps, which allows organizations to take account of objective reasons for differences (e.g.,performance, experience) and test if these are consistently applied across different demographic groups. For organizations that are smaller in size and might struggle to run meaningful regression analysis due to headcount limitations, a simpler comparison of averages between groups that perform the same work or work of equal value might be your starting point, followed by more manual checks for those groups that show pay gaps above 5% to understand if gaps can be explained.

Sharing Equity Insights without Risk

Leaders should try to keep it simple and avoid using too much technical jargon. In particular, the concept of regression analysis can be difficult to explain to a wider audience, which can lead to misunderstandings. You can create a culture of trust and transparency without over explaining the details of the analysis. Share in simple terms how pay is managed and how the organization ensures pay equity and fairness, reminding the audience what pay equity actually means (i.e., it does not mean that everybody needs to be paid exactly the same). You can touch on the foundational elements and processes that are in place to ensure the delivery of pay equity (job frameworks, pay structures), reward policies and the factors that are considered when making pay decisions (e.g., performance, experience) and the regular checks/reviews undertaken to ensure the delivery of pay equity.

Making Equity Core to Leadership

Pay equity needs to become second-nature to all leaders, and something they take responsibility for, rather than being an annual review that’s conducted by HR. Make it a habit that internal equity is a key consideration in any pay decision (i.e., how do we pay individuals who perform broadly similar roles in the organization? Would I be able to explain the difference in pay with other incumbents?). Lead by example and make sure that there is clarity and transparency on how pay and careers are managed in the organization. The more clarity there is, the easier it will be for other leaders and managers to apply this with consistency.