Is pay transparency becoming more prevalent globally?
The momentum around pay transparency is building for two key reasons, legislative pressure in key markets and societal expectations brought on by a new generation of workers.
For employers around the world, the emphasis needs to be on understanding the specific requirements and nuances within their own country, while also viewing those requirements in a global context.
Only by doing this can they enable meaningful comparisons, drive consistency and future-proof themselves in the drive towards a gold standard.
Societal pressure
There is no doubt that societal expectations are changing, largely driven by a new digital-native generation of worker.
Hungry for progression and pay growth, this cohort has grown up using sites like Glassdoor, PayScale and Transparency Street to glean salary information and will infer meaning from whatever data is available.
On the one hand this visibility can empower people, but if much of the data is self-reported and lacking in context, it can also create a dangerous information vacuum for companies not being proactive.
Turning legislation into consistent policy
Regardless of the market, each new piece of legislation being drafted around pay transparency shares a common goal of driving employers towards opening up more around pay, benefits and careers, but driving consistency can be hard.
As of 2025, pay gap reporting requirements are in place across 43 countries and 48 jurisdictions.
In the US, 14 states (more than 26% of the workforce) are covered by pay transparency laws that include the disclosure of pay ranges or even total compensation in adverts, and the banning of salary history.
In Europe, each country will implement the EU Directive according to their own culture and readiness, which will lead to different requirements for businesses operating across multiple countries.
For example, Sweden’s Discrimination Act already requires employers with just 10+ employees to document the process and outcomes of equal pay surveys.
In France pay equality regulations start with companies of 50+ employees, both more stringent than the EU directive proposal of gender pay reporting for 100+ employees.
Assessing transparency readiness
In practice, before transposing the legislation into local law, many countries need clarity around things like category of worker to enable meaningful comparisons, and how data will be collated and treated if the measures are to cover both pay and benefits.
While this uncertainty still prevails, we are encouraging organisations to get their houses in order by understanding what they already have in place and where they need to plug gaps.
This could even extend to a broader global strategy around total reward transparency addressing key questions that apply to every organisation:
- What does transparency mean to us in the context of pay, benefits, careers and wellbeing?
- What role does transparency play in our overall employee value proposition?
- How far are we willing to go in the absence of mandates or legislation?
Universal steps for moving forward
These are some steps business leaders and HR can take now to start futureproofing themselves:
- Engage leadership: Create legislative awareness among your key stakeholders and start planning.
- Data requirements: Identify any additional data needed for calculation and reporting purposes and determine how it will be collated. Consider carefully any gaps in data, for example around the ethnicity and disability reporting being put forward by the UK government. Figure out the best way to acquire this from employees, and any communications you might need to encourage disclosure.
- Know your current pay gaps: Test-run the new legislative requirements to identify any gaps and determine whether they are objectively justifiable. If they are not, look at how you can close them.
- Sense-check reward structures and polices: Are they robust enough? Can you explain any differences in eligibility, opportunity and outcome by objective, gender-neutral reasons?
- Educate: Increase education for managers and employees so that they understand what pay transparency means to your organisation. Make sure that managers can answer any tricky questions arising from compliance with new legislation, for example around the sharing of salary information at the recruitment phase.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Innecto Reward Consulting
We have more than 20 years' experience in getting employers' pay and reward working harder for them.
