Six months to go: what the EU Pay Transparency Directive already means for benefits

With six months to go until the EU Pay Transparency Directive (EUPTD) comes into force in June, many organizations are well past the point of first awareness.

Legal interpretations are underway. Job architecture reviews have started. Pay range conversations are happening – sometimes for the first time.

But as the deadline gets closer, a different set of questions is beginning to surface. Not “What do we need to disclose?” – but “What will employees actually see, understand, and question?”

And increasingly, those questions are landing squarely on benefits and total reward.

The shift we’re seeing six months out

In the early stages, EUPTD conversations tend to centre on compliance:

• What data needs to be published?
• Where do pay ranges need to appear?
• How do we prepare for reporting and employee requests?

Six months out, the focus is starting to broaden.

Reward and HR leaders are recognizing that pay transparency doesn’t land in a vacuum. Once pay becomes more visible, everything around it is re-evaluated – especially benefits.

Employees don’t just see a salary range and stop there. They ask:

• What else am I getting?
• How does this compare to others – inside and outside the organization?
• Why is my package structured this way?

Indeed, 65% of employees say they want to be able to benchmark benefits and salary against others. For employees at global organizations, this figure is even higher at 71%.

And if those answers aren’t clear, transparency can quickly turn into uncertainty.

Why benefits matter more as transparency increases

One of the biggest risks, six months before go-live, is focusing too narrowly on pay.

Salary is only part of the employment deal – but it’s often the only part employees can clearly see. And when pay becomes more transparent without equivalent clarity on benefits, a distortion emerges.

This matters because most employees underestimate the value of their benefits. While employers typically invest at least 20% of salary in benefits, 14% of global employees estimate this figure to be 5%, and 16% of employees think their organization only invests 5-9% of salary in benefits.

In a pay-transparent world, that gap becomes more visible – and more problematic.

Without clear benefits communication:

• Pay ranges look less competitive than they actually are
• Total reward decisions are harder to defend
• Employees draw conclusions based on incomplete information

Six months out, organizations know that pay transparency without benefits transparency is only half a story.

Total reward statements: from “nice-to-have” to a practical tool

This is why Total Reward Statements (TRS) are a core part of the pay transparency conversation.

Rather than being static annual documents, organizations are using them as:

• A way to contextualize pay alongside benefits
• A communication tool in recruitment and onboarding
• A foundation for more confident reward conversations

As one Benifex customer put it, moving from pages of small print to a clear, visual TRS completely changed how employees – and candidates – understood the value of joining and staying.

“Our total reward statements are so powerful. When an employee looks at that, they can see the complete build up.

We’ve taken the concept of the total reward statement from the RewardU platform and introduced that into our recruitment process. Rather than the offer going out and having five or six pages of what they get, we’ve got a very clear visual that shows the complete picture of total reward.

An employee was considering leaving for a 10% pay increase. We reviewed his total reward statement together, and it turned out he’d actually be worse off. He said he hadn’t realized how powerful his full package was.”
Peter Stack, Group Head of Reward, Urenco

That’s not about persuading people to stay at all costs. It’s about enabling informed decisions, something transparency legislation is ultimately trying to achieve.

Transparency isn’t just about visibility – it’s about the explanation

Another key realization emerging six months out is this: transparency doesn’t just mean showing numbers.

Employees want to understand:

• Why a role sits within a particular range
• How job levels are determined
• What principles shape reward and benefits decisions
• How all of this connects to organizational values
• What reward strategy looks like globally

“[Pay philosophy] shifts the balance of power from the company to the employee. Now we need to defend why, not the other way around. And I think it is a very strong message, and it pushes us to the right direction quickly.”
Konstantinos Karavidas, Global Head of Reward, IKEA

Simply publishing data without context risks replacing one problem with another. The organizations best prepared for EUPTD aren’t aiming for perfect answers; they’re investing in clear explanations (supported by clear frameworks and policies).

This is where benefits play a critical role. Benefits often reflect values more directly than pay does: wellbeing, flexibility, family support, long-term security. Making those elements visible helps employees see the full picture of their total reward.

What reward teams are doing now

With the Directive set to go live in June, a few patterns are emerging among organizations that feel confident about what’s coming:

• They’re stress-testing not just compliance, but communication
• They’re reviewing how benefits show up alongside pay – not separately
• They’re using total reward to support understanding, not just disclosure
• They’re preparing managers for questions, not just processes

Crucially, they’re treating transparency as an ongoing capability, not a one-off project.

Resources to support your readiness

With six months to go, the goal isn’t to have everything perfectly solved.

It’s to be ready for conversations. Ready for questions. Ready to explain not just what employees see, but why they see it.

For many organizations, benefits – and how they’re communicated – will be the difference between transparency that builds trust and transparency that creates noise.

Here’s how some Benifex customers are thinking about pay transparency and using TRS to support their journey:

• Inside IKEA’s pay transparency journey (REBA)
• Watch the full IKEA story here
• How Urenco built a reward strategy to support rapid growth

More resources to support your approach EUPTD:

Strategy:

• The Journey Behind the EU PAy Transparency Directive with Danish MEP, Kira Marie Peter-Hansen – the lead negotiator behind the EU Pay Transparency Directive
• The EU Pay Transparency Directive: a briefing for reward leaders
• The EU Pay Transparency Directive: 10 questions we were asked – and how we answered

TRS and tech:

• TRS 2.0: The missing piece in your EU Pay Transparency strategy (watch the related webinar here)
• The EU Pay Transparency Directive: Why global organizations are using Total Reward Statements as the core pillar of their strategy
• Beyond the EU Pay Transparency Directive: How to simplify pay transparency with the right tech – in partnership with Sysarb