Labour law and HR Pay transparency - Challenge No. 1: Role Mapping roles and Job Evaluation
Pay Transparency – Challenge #1: Role Mapping and Job Evaluation
The draft Polish act implementing the pay transparency provisions is still under review and consultation, so the new regulations do not yet form part of the Polish legal framework. This does not change the fact that employers should already commence preparations for their implementation – in particular by organising their job architecture, remuneration policies and internal documentation.
Preparing an organisation for the new pay transparency requirements should not start with publishing salary information itself. The first step is to put solid foundations in place – that is, to answer the question: which roles exist in the organisation and what is their actual value?
In practice, many organisations have extensive job structures, but scopes of responsibility, job titles and remuneration rules are not always aligned. This is precisely why the first stage of preparation should consist of mapping roles and reviewing the current approach to shaping remuneration.
How are salaries currently structured?
At this stage, we analyse, among other things:
- which job positions exist in the organisation and how they are allocated to individual business areas;
- what the scopes of responsibility are for each role;
- which remuneration components employees receive in addition to base salary;
- which allowances and benefits are available to specific groups of employees and which rules govern their allocation.
Particular attention should be paid not only to base salaries, but also to the additional elements of the total reward package, such as bonuses, awards, functional allowances, non cash benefits, company cars and other perks.
Analysis of documentation and actual practice in the organisation
The next step is to review the documents currently in force, in particular:
- employment contracts and the templates used;
- remuneration and bonus schemes;
- rules for granting benefits and additional entitlements;
- internal procedures on promotions, pay rises and employee development.
What matters is not only what follows from the documentation, but also how remuneration rules operate in practice. Very often, differences between formal regulations and the day-to-day approach to HR decisions are the source of the greatest challenges when implementing pay transparency principles.
Outcome: Comparable Roles and a Structured Pay Architecture
The outcome of this first stage is the creation of a foundation for further actions, in particular:
- a clarified and organised job structure;
- defined comparability of roles;
- clear job profiles that reflect the scope of responsibility, required competencies and the impact of a given role on the functioning of the organisation;
- a basis for subsequent work on transparent remuneration rules and salary ranges.
Pay transparency requires organisations not only to adopt new procedures, but above all to take a deliberate approach to how roles are defined and how differences in pay are justified.
If your organisation is preparing for the implementation of new pay transparency requirements, it is worth starting with streamlining your current remuneration model and job architecture. We can support you in analysing the current state, identifying areas that require change and preparing your organisation for the next stages of implementation.
