With the EU Pay Transparency Directive having now been transposed locally, your organisation should be using this time to prepare. Essentially, this means conducting a thorough job evaluation exercise to determine equal work of equal value based on a set of fair criteria.
What is the job evaluation process?
The job evaluation process is used to determine the relative size or value of jobs within an organisation to establish fair and consistent pay structures. In summary, it involves assessing the complexity of roles, their responsibilities, and their contribution to the organisation in order to determine the relative value of jobs. Importantly, the focus on the content of the role or job description rather than on the performance of the individual behind that role.
This process helps organisations build a structured foundation for pay decisions, reduce internal inconsistencies, support compliance requirements, and improve transparency. At the same time, it provides a better understanding of the relative value of roles and of how pay compares with the market. This in turn helps attract and retain talent, strengthens trust in leadership and HR, and reflects a clear commitment to fairness and accountability.
Why is it important?
We all know pay is a sensitive topic. Uncovering differences in pay between roles of comparable value can therefore lead to dissatisfaction, mistrust, and higher levels of absenteeism or turnover, as employees may feel that their work is not recognised fairly. In some sectors, these effects can further increase existing labour shortages by making it harder to retain people and maintain operational capacity. Pay inequities can also expose organisations to legal risk, particularly in relation to equal pay and anti-discrimination requirements.
A lack of alignment with market standards may also affect an organisation’s ability to attract and retain talent, weakening recruitment efforts and overall competitiveness. In addition, unclear pay processes can undermine trust in leadership and HR, and may create perceptions of bias or unfair treatment.
On the flipside, getting this right and enhancing transparency helps strengthen trust by making it clearer how pay decisions are made.
STRATA methodology
STRATA is a job evaluation methodology developed by PwC that has been used across the globe for more than 25 years. Its multifaceted approach is based on 11 precise, objective, and transparent criteria that are aligned to the EU PTD. Its iterative methodology allows for review and validation enhancing the sustainability of the process and the consistency of the results.
In conducting a job evaluation, each role is evaluated and scored across the STRATA-criteria. The addition of these scores and the comparison of pay across roles of similar scores serves as the groundwork for an evaluation system that is tailored to your organisation.
Benefits of STRATA
Under the EU Pay Transparency Directive, an objective and gender-neutral job evaluation must be applied. STRATA does exactly this, by creating structure that leads to clarity, transparency, and comparability between each role in the company. As per the Directive, the evaluation should include the following four factors, which map seamlessly to STRATA:
EU Pay Transparency Directive (PTD) requirements in a nutshell
How to reach a defensible categorisation of workers
Categorise workers into comparable groups of work: group roles based on the work actually performed, so that categories of workers doing the same work or work of equal value can be identified.
Assess roles using objective and gender-neutral criteria: use criteria such as skills, responsibility, job requirements and working conditions to evaluate roles in line with the Directive’s requirements.
Ensure roles of equal value are evaluated consistently across the organisation: apply the same assessment approach across functions and business areas to support consistency in how roles are compared and classified.
Document the criteria, rationale and outcomes: maintain a clear record of the methodology used, the criteria applied and the decisions taken, so that the process is traceable and defensible.
Use the results as the basis for fair pay analysis and EU PTD readiness: use the outcome of the assessment to analyse pay differences across comparable categories of workers and support preparation for EU PTD requirements.
How can we help?
As you prepare for pay transparency, a clear and consistent approach to job evaluation is essential. We can help you translate EU PTD requirements into a practical job evaluation approach using the STRATA methodology to assess roles consistently across the organisation, clarify job levels, and support a clear link between roles, reward, and career progression. We also help ensure that the process, criteria, and outcomes are documented, traceable and defensible for compliance purposes.
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