The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has welcomed the suggestion by a spokesman for Minister for Equality Roderic O’Gorman that the scope of the European Directive on pay transparency be broadened in Ireland so that more employers and their workers are affected by its provisions.
These include a requirement to publish pay ranges for vacant positions, provide details of existing rates for specific roles and actively engage with workers or their representatives to address high gender pay gaps.
Some of the gender pay gap-related requirements of the directive on pay transparency measures will be phased in, depending on an employer’s size, over a number of years – with the proposed schedule trailing well behind that currently set out in Ireland for the expansion of existing gender pay gap reporting obligations.
Two Private Member’s bills currently in before the Dáil or Seanad seek to address many of the issues covered by the directive but the Government is likely to be obliged to legislate for it by 2026 at the latest.
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Under the terms of the directive, companies with more than 250 workers would initially be required to meet all reporting obligations on an annual basis, with those having between 150 and 249 workers having to report every three years. Firms employing between 100 to 149 people would come under its scope five years after the provisions became law.
However, the Sunday Business Post has reported that a spokesman for Mr O’Gorman said the Department of Children and Equality is engaged in “detailed consideration” of whether the transparency obligations should be extended to “a wider range of employers”.
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An Ictu spokeswoman said on Sunday that, as with the year of Gender Pay Gap reporting in Ireland, only 700 employers and one in three workers would be affected by obligations being placed on employers with more than 250 staff.
“We welcome that the Minister is considering a lower threshold, and Ictu will be strongly urging him to go far below the 100-employee threshold,” they said.
Not all of the provisions are dependent on the company size, with the obligation that an employer provide information on the average or individual pay for specific roles set to be established regardless of employee numbers.
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In relation to salary ranges for vacant positions, employers will have to provide information about the initial pay level or its range in the job vacancy notice, or at least before the job interview takes place. Employers will not be allowed to ask prospective workers about their pay history.
The move is intended to aid transparency and help ensure men and women are paid equally for the same work, as the law requires. Job advertisements have become more relevant, with LinkedIn reporting recently on a survey of its subscribers in the United States in which 91 per cent of respondents said the inclusion of salary ranges would impact on their decision on whether to apply or not.
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With respect to addressing gender pay gaps of more than 5 per cent, which the employer cannot justify by having a gender neutral explanation, a process will have to be established in co-operation with workers’ representatives to assess the situation.
A survey by PwC of up 500 gender pay gap reports published by Irish employers during December found that 71 per cent reported gaps of higher than 5 per cent, with the average overall found to be 12.6 per cent, and 48 per cent of employers reporting gaps above the average.
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development director Mary Connaughton believes the first year of mandatory gender pay gap reporting in Ireland has underlined the scale of the issue, and that while achieving substantial reductions in the coming years will be challenging, the process has had a positive impact by forcing employers, and their boards, to really focus on the issue in a way they had not before.
“Some companies already have had an equality and diversity agenda, and have been looking at their figures and been conscious of what they need to do. But the fact that they’re now legally required to report has brought the conversation to the boardroom,” she said. “It is now something that will be tracked and monitored. And some companies are looking for it to be monitored on a quarterly basis with board reports. That means intensive attention on it, and I think that’s a big plus.”
