Ombudsman for Equality

What is to be examined in the pay survey?

Survey on the grading of jobs, pay, and pay differences

A survey of the grade of jobs performed by women and men, the pay for those jobs and the differences in pay shall be conducted as part of the gender equality plan. The grade of a job refers to a rating according to a job evaluation system used by the employer or another grouping of jobs applied at the workplace. The ratings are used to determine the level of competence at which the jobs performed by women and men are placed.

What does 'pay' refer to?

In the pay survey provision, 'pay' basically refers to the same as in the prohibition of pay discrimination of the Equality Act. The concept of 'pay' comprises at least of a basic salary as well as the various bonuses and fringe benefits considered as part of employment income.

However, the benefits considered as part of employment income that are decided upon by the legislator, are to be excluded from the pay survey. (This includes, for example, pension benefits paid according to the Finnish Pension Act, see Court of Justice of the European Communities, Case Niemi C-351/00).

The survey shall focus on both pay systems and actual wages and salaries paid

In the pay survey, both the pay systems used at the workplace and their application, i.e. the actual wages and salaries paid, should be reviewed. Whether women and men are treated equally as far as pay systems are concerned and whether employees doing equally demanding jobs receive equal treatment should be examined as far as possible. Pay discrimination may be due to the fact that the criteria applied to pay are, by definition, discriminatory or that they are applied in a discriminatory fashion.

Regulations on pay systems are usually included in collective agreements but arrangements agreed locally at the workplace may also be applied. For example, decisions on performance-related pay schemes and the criteria for receiving merit pay are usually employer-specific. The employer may also pay voluntary one-off or regular benefits (such as Christmas bonuses) that are comparable to employment income. The pay survey should encompass various kinds of emoluments regardless of the basis on which they are determined.

The survey shall cover all elements of pay

The examination of pay shall be extended to cover all the different elements of pay, even the variety of bonuses. Consequently, an examination of the basic salaries only is not sufficient. The criteria and application concerning both basic salaries and bonuses shall be non-discriminatory.

If the pay is examined broken down by the elements of pay, remuneration becomes more transparent and the assessment of the grounds for pay differences easier. As the pay survey must be carried out in such a way that the pay sums cannot be linked to individual employees, the wages and salaries can be reported in the pay specification by pay element, as long as it does not contradict this premise.

Recording the wages and salaries in the pay survey as total pay places higher demands on the assessment of the grounds of pay differences. The grounds for pay differences may be related to either job-specific pay differences or bonuses.

Examining jobs at the same competence level

In order to find out whether jobs at the same competence level are treated equitably, there should first be a common understanding at the workplace of which jobs are equally demanding, i.e. of equal value. After establishing this, it should be examined whether employees doing equally demanding jobs actually receive equal pay. Thus, it is not sufficient to merely describe the placement of jobs at different competence levels in an evaluation system or into various groupings according to pay. When determining the competence level of jobs of equal value, it is advisable to make use of a job evaluation system, even if it is not required by the Equality Act.

Factors that should be taken into account when comparing jobs are, according to the preparatory materials of the Equality Act, the nature and content of the tasks as well as working conditions. In the early 1990s, the national working group focusing on job evaluation that was set up by the central labour market organisations in Finland made a proposal for a job evaluation framework. The framework rests on four pillars (criteria): skills, responsibility, workload and working conditions. The working group broke these further down into the following sub-factors: knowledge, physical skills, problem solving skills, interactive skills, financial responsibility, responsibility for people, physical workload, mental and emotional workload, and working conditions.

Examining the division of emoluments

When assessing the implementation of equality, identifying the factors that affect the remuneration of the different employee groups and establishing which emoluments are paid to the different employee groups should be given priority. It may be examined, for example, how different kinds of disadvantages of the working conditions are reflected on the pay of different employee groups or which fringe benefits are received by employees belonging to different employee groups.

It would also be necessary to assess whether the pay criteria are, by definition, non-discriminatory: for instance, are the criteria for individual bonuses gender-neutral, and are employees on maternity leave, for example, treated equitably in terms of merit pay. Moreover, it should be examined whether these criteria are applied in practice in a non-discriminatory fashion.