Labour law and HR Pay Transparency under scrutiny: What must an employer agree upon with employees?

Foundations of Pay Transparency in Polish Law

The implementation of Directive (EU) 2023/970 and the Polish Draft Act of 12 December 2025 on Strengthening the Application of the Right to Equal Pay for Equal Work or Work of Equal Value ends traditional pay confidentiality. A key aspect of the upcoming changes is the shift away from unilateral determination of pay structures toward involving employees in job evaluation and monitoring the gender pay gap. For companies, this means a need to revise existing remuneration regulations and HR strategies.

Agreeing on Job Evaluation Criteria

Pursuant to Article 3 of the Polish draft act, every employer will be required to conduct a job evaluation for individual positions. However, Article 4 of the Polish draft act introduces significant procedural requirements:

• Obligation to agree: If at least one company-level trade union organization operates at the employer, the employer must agree with it on objective, gender-neutral criteria and sub-criteria for the evaluation (such as skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions). This solution requires a jointly developed position, giving trade unions a real influence over the foundations of the pay grid.
• Consultations on employee categories: The process of determining specific categories of employees is subject to consultations with the company-level trade union organization. These must last from 5 to 15 days from the presentation by the employer of a proposal to establish employee categories.
• Absence of company-level trade union organizations: Where no company-level trade union organization operates, the determination of the criteria, sub-criteria, and employee categories rests with the employer; however, they must remain transparent and free from discrimination.

Reporting and Verification of Data Reliability

Employers with at least 100 employees will be required to prepare regular gender pay gap reports. Under the Polish draft act, this process does not end with analytics alone:

• Attestation of reliability: The employer must attest to the reliability of the information contained in the gender pay gap report after consultation with the company-level trade union organization.
• Access to methodology: The employee side (the company-level trade union organization) additionally gains the right of access to the methodology used to prepare the gender pay gap report, designed to prevent the statistical masking of pay disparities.

Joint Pay Assessment

Where the gender pay gap report shows a pay gap of at least 5% that is not justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria, and the employer has not taken effective remedial action within the deadline specified in the draft act, a joint pay assessment procedure is triggered. The employer conducts it in consultation with the company-level trade union organization or—if none exists—with employee representatives elected by the workforce in the manner adopted by the employer.

Summary

The proposed changes on pay transparency envisage a broad catalogue of consultation obligations on the part of employers. In many instances, the draft explicitly requires consultations with the company-level trade union organization, thereby strengthening its role in implementing new pay solutions. At the same time, the draft act in numerous provisions limits the consultation channel exclusively to company-level trade union organizations, overlooking other forms of employee representation, which may give rise to material practical concerns—especially for employers where no trade union operates. It should be remembered, however, that the regulations discussed are at a draft stage. The final scope of consultation obligations, the circle of entities entitled to participate in consultations, and their form may still change in the course of the legislative process. For this reason, it is prudent to exercise caution in drawing definitive conclusions and to continuously monitor the further progress of the legislative process.

Our Experience

As part of our implementation projects relating to the pay transparency directive, we provide comprehensive end-to-end support—from the analysis of legal obligations, through the preparation of procedures and documentation, to support in consultation processes. We pay particular attention to ensuring appropriate employee involvement tailored to the organizational structure, including cooperation with company-level trade union organizations or other forms of representation where required or warranted. This ensures that implementations are not only compliant with the proposed and applicable regulations but are also genuinely workable in employers’ organizational practice.