The employee right to pay information: how to prepare to answer within two months
By the Equaudit team · Updated · 3 min read
The directive gives every worker the right to ask their employer for information about their own pay and about the average pay of colleagues doing the same work or work of equal value, split by sex. You have to answer, in writing, within two months. The first request will arrive sooner than you think, and the quality of your answer depends on work you can do now.
What workers are entitled to
A worker can request, in writing, their individual pay level and the average pay levels, broken down by sex, for the categories of workers performing the same work as them or work of equal value to theirs. They can make the request directly, through their representatives or through the national equality body.
- Deadline. You must reply within a reasonable period and at the latest within two months of the request.
- Annual reminder. You must inform all workers every year of their right to receive the information and of the steps to take.
- Correction. Workers can ask for clarification and the information must be correct and complete. If a worker believes the data is inaccurate, you need to respond and, if necessary, correct it.
- Freedom to disclose. Workers must not be prevented from disclosing their pay for the purpose of enforcing equal pay, so contract clauses that forbid it are not acceptable for that purpose.
The data you need ready
A good answer needs three things you can prepare in advance:
- The worker's own pay level. Define which components you include, such as base, bonus and benefits, and how you express it, for example gross annual pay and hourly equivalent.
- The comparison group. The category of workers doing the same work or work of equal value. This is why defining job categories comes first.
- Average pay for the group, by sex. The same calculations that feed your pay gap report, computed for each category.
Because the data is the same, a clean payroll extract and a category mapping let you serve both the annual report and ad hoc requests from the same source.
Build a simple process
- Intake. Decide how requests are submitted and who receives them, and log the date of receipt. The two-month clock starts then.
- Verify. Confirm identity and that the request concerns the worker's own data and category.
- Compute. Pull the pay data, produce the individual figure and the category averages by sex.
- Review. Check small categories for data protection issues, and have HR review anything that looks like an unexplained gap.
- Reply. Send a written answer using a standard template, with the date, the category definition and the figures.
- Record. Store the request, the answer and the data used, so that you can repeat or defend it later.
What the reply can look like
A reply typically states the worker's role and category, the worker's gross pay level on the agreed basis, the average gross pay of women and of men in the category on the same basis, the date of the data, and a contact for follow-up questions. Keep the wording neutral and factual, and avoid speculation about reasons unless you have documented them.
Pay gaps surfaced by a request are the same gaps your 5% analysis is meant to find first, so running that analysis before requests start is the best preparation. You can try it with Equaudit.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to answer a pay information request?
Within a reasonable period and no later than two months from the date the request is received, in writing.
Do I have to tell employees about this right?
Yes. Employers must inform workers annually of their right to receive pay information and of the steps they need to take to exercise it.
Can an employee ask what a named colleague earns?
The right covers the worker's own pay and the average pay, by sex, for categories of workers doing the same work or work of equal value, not the pay of a named individual.