Wage Audit and VPT

Salary Audit and Job Evaluation

24 December 2021.

Maria Iglesias

As the Instituto de la Mujer y para la Igualdad de Oportunidades points out, the pay gap is a persistent and universal phenomenon that affects all labour markets to a greater or lesser extent.

In order to facilitate and promote the reduction of the pay gap, the administration promotes the creation of wage registers (with information disaggregated by sex) in companies. With these registers we obtain an overview of the wage policy of each company and identify the existing wage gaps between women and men.

It should be recalled here that the Wage Register is compulsory for all companies with salaried employees, regardless of the number of employees, the sector, the structure or the size of the company.

  • SALARY AUDIT

As for the Wage Audit, this is a tool that works with the data provided by the Wage Register itself, applying new parameters. Such as the type of contract, the percentage of the working day or the number of children of the company's employees.

The application of these parameters to the register wage survey allows us to identify in greater detail the possible causes of wage differentials. This in turn allows us to plan measures and actions aimed at reducing these differences in a more concrete and effective way.

The audit will therefore contain new results on what was actually paid to the employees of a company in the previous year. Working on the basis of the data obtained in the wage register and using the job as a categorisation when making the occupational groupings: so that the work with the data from the register and the audit is consistent. In both reports, the occupational groupings (of jobs that are the same as each other) have to be made on the basis of the same classification. At this point, and due to the obligation that the audit must be carried out on a job-by-job basis, we are also obliged to make the wage register by job groups that are the same as each other.

  • JOB EVALUATION

As stated in Article 28 of the Workers' Statute: "The employer is obliged to pay for work of equal value the same remuneration, whether paid directly or indirectly, and whatever the nature of that remuneration, whether salaried or not, without any discrimination on grounds of sex in any of the elements or conditions of that remuneration".

This leads to the prior need for a Job Evaluation (JEP). This job evaluation must also be carried out from a gender perspective, with the most appropriate method, according to the ILO, being the evaluation of points per factor.

This objective and analytical tool should be able to compare the jobs included in the company's job catalogue with each other, taking as a reference the factors relevant to the company and giving them a relative weighting at company level and for each individual job.

For each of the jobs, we will take into account the sub-factors that have been previously chosen through the design of the company's own job evaluation system and we will give them a score based on a specific scale defined by sub-factor or competency in relation to a level of demand that will also have been specified. The assignment of this score to each sub-factor will give each job a total of points. This total will determine the value of the job within the organisation which will be the job evaluation.

We show an example of how some sub-factors or competences are assessed at job level:

Factor Sub-factor Valuation Points
Knowledge and skills Skills Baja 3
Knowledge and skills Language-English Not necessary 0
Responsibility Monitoring Shared responsibility 5
Working conditions Possibility to travel Quite necessary 7

With regard to the gender perspective, it is also necessary to identify whether the sub-factors or competencies are masculinised, feminised or neutral at company level. Depending on the weight of each sub-factor on each job, we can thus identify the masculinisation, feminisation or neutrality of each job. This identification will also help us when creating new measures or actions in terms of equality at HR level: in terms of selection, for example, trying to encourage the recruitment of women in jobs that are currently masculinised.

As we can see, VPT will add a lot of content to companies' HR policies. It will not be limited to being just a tool for salary-related work.

  • ITSS

In the area of wages, the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate has launched during the last year (and will continue to do so during the coming year) campaigns to control the wage register. As a result of the obligation to have a wage audit for companies with more than 50 workers, it will extend its control radius to the audit itself and will be able to request it from companies (it must be included in their Equality Plan).

It should be remembered that failure to comply with the obligation to have the Wage Audit available can lead to a fine of up to €7,200 (LISOS).

  • DEVELOPMENT OF HR PLANS AND AUTOMATION

The timing of the Salary Audit and Job Evaluation can also be an appropriate moment to review our job catalogue and the allocation of each job to each employee within the company (to avoid duplication, internal dysfunctions, etc.).

It is true that the administrative workload is already significant for HR departments in companies and for labour departments in professional practices.

For this reason, expert advice and technological tools suitable for handling salary data and capable of providing full coverage of legal compliance are of paramount importance.

Performing the salary audit and its corresponding PTV manually may mean having to outsource this service to an expert consultancy firm (to which we will have to provide the data we handle in our payroll software) or hiring a person to carry out this task for a period of no less than one month (which will be extended depending on the volume of data to be processed).

The use of efficient technology will help to reduce the workload and minimise the costs associated with this new legal obligation, which is the task of HR professionals. It will also help in the development of these departments and extend their influence at a strategic level within companies.

On the other hand, as we can well predict, the gender perspective will continue to touch closely and transversally the different labour and HR policies in companies, so we will have to be prepared to continue assuming the emergence of new trends, rules and regulations aimed at achieving effective equality between women and men in the business sphere.

 

 

For further information contact 93 872 69 44

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