Guide to equal pay reviews

"Equal pay can appear a difficult and daunting issue for an organisation to address. It requires a good understanding of diversity, equal pay and discrimination laws, and the application of those principles to increasingly sophisticated and market-oriented reward strategies. It may involve questioning long-held perceptions of the relative value and status of different jobs, and uncomfortable discussions about why some people receive more than others.

Co-operation with reward specialists and commitment from senior management are essential, but may be hard to achieve, given fears about potential costs and the disruption to long-standing practices. Nevertheless, equal pay has risen up the agenda in recent years, and for organisations that claim in their diversity policies to value all employees regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, disability, etc, checking and reviewing their reward practices to ensure this really is the case -- that all employees are rewarded in an equitable and fair way -- should be an essential feature of diversity practice." -- IDS Diversity at Work June 2005.