New regulations on pay transparency – what obligations will the employer have?

What new obligations regarding pay transparency will the employer have?

The new regulations impose four main types of obligations on employers:

1. Job evaluation and creation of a remuneration structure
2. Disclosure of remuneration rules
3. Obligation to provide information upon an employee’s request
4. Reporting the pay gap

Job evaluation and creation of a remuneration structure – Stage I of actions

The first step that every employer will have to take, regardless of the number of employees, is to assess the value of work at each position. The draft act indicates 4 mandatory evaluation criteria: skills, effort, scope of responsibility, and working conditions. However, the employer may also conduct the evaluation using additional criteria defined independently. Importantly – the evaluation of value applies to the position, not the person currently occupying it. This means that the employer will objectively assess the value of skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions for the position of, for example, communications manager or HR director – and will not evaluate the employee who currently (e.g., for 6 years) holds this position in the company.

Based on the completed evaluation, the employer will have to classify positions and designate employee categories. Thus, the entire job evaluation procedure will ultimately allow for grouping employees into those who perform the same work or work of equal value (despite holding completely different “thematically” positions). This systematization is necessary for the implementation of later information obligations, which provide for the criterion of “employees belonging to the same category.”

The final step in this initial phase of implementing regulations in the workplace is determining the factors for setting remuneration and its growth (e.g., skill development, seniority). Establishing these rules is necessary for the employer to be able to fulfill the subsequent information obligation. Familiarizing employees with remuneration rules is a requirement that the employer must fulfill on their own initiative.

To support employers in this first stage leading to increased pay transparency, the Minister responsible for Labor has publicly made available an auxiliary tool for conducting position assessment: https://www.gov.pl/web/rodzina/wartosciowanie-pracy

Disclosure of remuneration rules – Stage II of actions

After completing the job evaluation process, the employer must familiarize employees with the factors for setting remuneration (i.e., inform employees what is taken into account when determining the level of remuneration). This information may be made available in any manner adopted in the given workplace, e.g., by sending an email or making it available on a company shared drive.

Employers employing at least 50 employees must also provide employees with access to information about factors for remuneration growth (i.e., what the employer takes into account when deciding on raises). Smaller employers are only obligated to make this information available upon an employee’s request.

Obligation to provide information upon an employee’s request

The employer also has information obligations in the event an employee submits an appropriate request. Within 30 days of receiving it, the employer is obliged to provide information on:

1. The individual remuneration level and individual hourly remuneration level of that employee, and
2. The average remuneration level and average hourly remuneration level, broken down by gender, in the same category of employees in which the requester is located.

Under the term “same category of employees” from point 2., one should understand employees who, according to the completed job evaluation, have been classified into one group.

All components and benefits related to work are included in remuneration. Benefits granted to all employees (e.g., a gift card) or severance pay are not included. If providing the information would reveal the remuneration of a specific, identifiable person (e.g., in a case where only one other person besides the applicant works in a given category), the employer should refuse to provide the information to the requesting employee.

Additionally, every employer has an obligation to remind all employees once a year of their right to submit requests for information regarding their individual remuneration and the average remuneration in their category of employees.

Most importantly, to provide information upon an employee’s request, the employer must have a developed system of job evaluation and established transparent remuneration criteria before such a request is submitted.

Reporting the pay gap

The obligation to report the pay gap applies to employers employing from 100 employees. In the case of employers employing from 100-250 employees, a report specifying the differences in earnings between women and men is generally submitted every 3 years. Larger employers will have to meet this obligation annually, by March 31.

If the report shows a pay gap equal to or exceeding 5%, the employer will be obliged to take corrective actions.

What sanctions are threatened for violations?

The catalog of violations provided for in the act is broad, and possible penalties range from 2,000 to 60,000 PLN. Financial sanctions apply in the case of, among others, failure to conduct a job evaluation by the employer, failure to establish employee categories, and failure to fulfill information obligations.

From when is the employer subject to the new obligations?

According to Directive 2023/970, the Polish legislator was obligated to implement EU regulations by June 7, 2026. However, taking into account the current state of work on the act, the deadline for the implementation of new obligations by employers will be significantly longer.

The author of the article is legal assistant Patrycja Kiszka