New equal pay guide for small businesses

What you will find in this guide

The 37-page guide has been produced by the Equal Opportunities Commission in partnership with and with financial support from the Welsh Development Agency. It is aimed at small businesses without specialist personnel expertise.

The report includes:

A five-stage review process to check if your pay is fair and equitable

• Step 1: Plan how you are going to check your pay arrangements.
• Step 2: Identify jobs involving similar levels of skill and knowledge.
• Step 3: Collect and compare pay information.
• Step 4: Assess the pay information.
• Step 5: Change pay where it is not fair and equal.

Job descriptions

• Tips for drawing up job descriptions.
• An example of a job description pro forma.
• An example job description.
• A skills and knowledge framework.

Spreadsheet method for collecting and comparing pay information

• How to build up a spreadsheet to identify differences in pay and benefits between employees doing jobs which involve similar levels of skills and knowledge.
• A PC and Macintosh compatible CD-Rom with an excel spreadsheet.

Checklists

• Checklist to help you identify why these pay differences exist.
• Checklist to help you identify whether they are fair differences.