How Syndio Makes It Easy to Comply with the EU Directive
The EU Equal Pay and Transparency Directive is looming and requires never-before-seen levels of pay and career progression transparency. It will be compulsory for employers to assess, remediate, and publicly report on gender pay gap results. The EU Directive requires a new strategy, so a lift-and-shift from a U.S. approach to pay equity will not work.
Syndio helps in the areas where new analyses and calculations are required, and with remediation strategies and reporting. From there, you'll be well positioned to address the other requirements of the Directive, from posting equitable salaries to confidently communicating about pay — whether responding to an individual employee's questions or sharing a broader corporate narrative.
It's important to start preparing now so you have enough time to correct pay gaps incrementally, in the most efficient and cost-effective way, before you have to share them publicly.
Your Timeline for Success
| H2 2023 | H1 2024 | H2 2024 | H1 2025 | H2 2025 | H1 2026 | H2 2026 | H1 2027 | H2 2027 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Start Now Start now so you have time to take the steps you need to set yourself up for success. |
H1/H2 2024 Only two comp cycles until pay will need to be reported Analyze Start running your analysis now. |
H1/H2 2025 Last opportunity to change 2026 salaries In Progress By now, you should be well on your way to closing gaps. This is the last comp cycle for many companies before pay will need to be reported. |
7 June 2026 Last date for Directive to be transposed into law Don't wait! Pay report will be based on 2026 pay. Some companies may be tempted to wait to assess and remediate, but that will be too late. |
7 June 2027 First pay gap report due, covering compensation paid in 2026 Finish line  At this point, you want to be reporting from a place of confidence, with strong results and a clear plan. |
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Start Now
Start now so you have time to take the steps you need to set yourself up for success.
H1/H2 2024
Only two comp cycles until pay will need to be reported
Analyze
Start running your analysis now.
H1/H2 2025
Last opportunity to change 2026 salaries
In Progress
By now, you should be well on your way to closing gaps. This is the last comp cycle for many companies before pay will need to be reported.
7 June 2026
Last date for Directive to be transposed into law
Don't wait!
Pay report will be based on 2026 pay. Some companies may be tempted to wait to assess and remediate, but that will be too late.
7 June 2027
First pay gap report due, covering compensation paid in 2026
Finish line
At this point, you want to be reporting from a place of confidence, with strong results and a clear plan.
Action Plan: 3 steps to ease the path to compliance
Assess
Conduct your initial pay assessment and remediation as soon as possible — so you know where you stand and can start closing pay gaps that may be too expensive to close all at once later on.
Identify gender pay gaps greater than 5%
Use PayEQ® to quickly create and fine tune groups of employees who do work of equal and comparable value. The platform will then analyze those groups and identify which have gender pay gaps > 5%.
Apply controls
With a few clicks in PayEQ, you can account for factors - like tenure or location - and instantly run a regression analysis to see if the gaps are explained by neutral factors.
Identify what factors impact pay
PayEQ will also tell you which factors really impact differences in pay, so you can comply with employees' rights to have access to the criteria used to determine pay, pay levels, and career progression, as outlined in the Directive, when the time comes.
Budget
Use Syndio to make a detailed plan for closing pay gaps required by the EU Directive. Test different budgets to see how much you can close your gaps with different levels of investment, helping you plan for near- and longer-term remediation strategies.
Reassess
Repeat your analysis and remediate periodically to continue to close gaps efficiently and before you have to share the results of your analysis publicly.
Repeat pay assessment and remediation
Use Syndio to periodically reassess pay equity and remediate gaps that you couldn't close the first time, or that have cropped up or widened since your last analysis. Most Syndio users rerun this process 2-4x/year, which helps them keep gaps at a minimum and communicate progress with internal teams. You can also use Syndio to proactively assess pay changes (like merit adjustments) before rolling them out to help maintain pay equity over time.
Proactively set equitable salaries
Syndio also offers a product called Pay Finder™ that provides pay recommendations and guidelines to recruiters and hiring teams as they are making pay decisions at hire and promotion or transfer. This helps ensure initial starting salaries and pay changes are equitable, preventing pay gaps from forming in the first place.
Communicate
Craft your narrative and prepare to publish your 2026 results in 2027. By now you have made significant progress on gaps and can be confident in releasing results that your employees, candidates, and customers will see.
Educate internal teams
Partner with Syndio to develop a communications strategy. This will include educating internal stakeholders, like managers, on the details of how you grouped employees and the policies that explain differences in pay. Doing this before you share your first report will help them confidently and accurately answer employee questions about pay.
Configure final report
Use Syndio Global Pay Reports to compile the gender pay gap metrics you need to report on and share the results of your analysis. Calculating these well in advance of reporting will give you the time you need to build a narrative around why there are gaps. You can also request reports and receive step-by-step guidance and communications advice.
Make sure you're ready to share additional information with employees that's not included in the report. For example, PayEQ helps you see which gender-neutral criteria are used to define the pay of each employee, so you can make this information accessible, as outlined by the Directive.
Why start now?
You might have less time than you think. The first report will be due 7 June 2027, so it is easy to think you have a lot of time. But because the first report will be based on compensation earned in 2026, that means that you only have — at most — two compensation cycles to correct issues before they become part of your public pay reporting.
Because of the Directive, many employers will have to rethink how they are grouping employees. The groupings will not just be comparing employees doing the same or similar job but comparing employees doing work that is of comparable value to the organization. Testing and iterating to ensure your groupings make sense can take time.
Bridging the gap can be a costly endeavor. If you can spread out remediation costs over the next 2-3 years, you give yourself time to fix this before you must report, instead of having to do it as one large expense. Companies typically don't have that budget.
Anita Lettink
Future of Work Speaker and Syndio Advisor
And the sooner you run your first assessment, the more time you'll have to correct pay gaps before you have to share them publicly. Companies that invest early will be able to plan ahead and share successes in their first report, instead of only exposing areas for improvement.
You'll also be able to remediate gaps in the most cost effective way possible. If you wait, you'll be forced to commit to long-term plans that are less likely to actually close pay gaps as employees leave, get hired, and move into higher paying positions.
Looking for guidance on how to prepare for the EU Directive?
Contact our team to learn how Syndio can help and explore our comprehensive resources.
