Petra Jansen· Benefits Manager, Steinbach Industrie
Posted in Pay Equity & Transparency ·
For colleagues elsewhere in Europe who are building this for the first time: we have been doing an annual pay survey with our unions in Sweden for a long time, in a forestry and paper company of about 3,900 employees, and a few habits may save you effort.
First, the comparison between different jobs of equal value is where the findings are. Same-job comparisons rarely show much. Comparing a female-dominated group such as payroll and customer service coordinators with a male-dominated group of equal demands, such as maintenance planners, is where we found differences of 6 to 9%.
Second, do it with the union representatives in the room from the first step, not at the end. Third, write the action plan with costs and dates, because next year's survey starts by checking last year's plan.
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HR Business Partner, Bellwether Consulting
The point about equal-value comparisons across different jobs is the one I think most employers outside the Nordics are underestimating. Our Belgian and French entities are preparing only same-job comparisons. When you found the 6 to 9% differences, how did you correct them, given the higher-paid group was presumably on a collectively agreed scale?
People Analytics Lead, Larkspur Manufacturing
Over three pay rounds, by directing a larger share of the local pot to the lower-paid group, agreed with the unions each time. Nobody's pay was reduced. It cost about 0.15% of paybill per year for those three years. It was slow, and the unions representing the maintenance group were not delighted, which is why having them in the analysis from the start mattered.
