Running the analysis under legal privilege: who inside HR gets to see the output?

Our counsel had us separate findings from actions. The findings, meaning coefficients, group-level gaps and the flagged list, stay inside the privileged circle. Actions leave it stripped of the reasoning: a business partner receives the names in their area and the proposed new salary, and confirms there is no reason not to proceed.

For process fixes such as starting pay, we brief talent acquisition on the rule we want, without sharing the analysis behind it.

We were also told not to forward the report or summarise it in email; briefings are verbal with counsel present. Check with your own counsel, since it depends on how the engagement was set up.

I will offer the dissenting experience. We ran under privilege for three years and concluded it was costing us more than it protected. Nobody could learn from the analysis and the same problems recurred. We now do the annual monitoring openly as a business process and reserve privilege for specific investigations where counsel thinks there is real exposure.

Also consider what you may be required to disclose anyway. Operating in several states with pay data reporting, and with European entities that will publish category gaps, we found a growing share of the output was heading into the open regardless. That changed our counsel's advice on how much effort to spend protecting the rest.