In this Coffee Talk Special, Henrike von Platen speaks with Margrét Vilborg Bjarnadóttir about pay equity and Article 10 of the EU Pay Transparency Directive, focusing on remediation, action, and organizational impact when pay gaps cannot be justified.
The exchange begins with an important distinction that shapes the rest of the discussion. As Margrét explains, the EU Pay Transparency Directive is not primarily designed to eliminate the adjusted pay gap. Its core mechanisms focus on the overall gender pay gap and on the actions employers must take when significant differences appear within categories of workers. That distinction matters because organizations that are already working seriously on pay equity should not treat the directive as a substitute for the broader goal of reducing unjustified pay differences to zero. In the conversation, Article 10 is therefore positioned as complementary to pay equity work rather than as its endpoint.
This framing also clarifies how Article 10 connects to Article 9. Article 9 requires employers to calculate the gender pay gap within categories of workers. Article 10 addresses what happens next if those measured gaps are materially large. In practical terms, the discussion describes a two-step logic. First, an employer identifies the pay gap within a worker category. Second, the employer assesses whether objective, gender-neutral factors can explain that difference. Examples mentioned in the conversation include tenure, leadership responsibility, experience, and performance. These are not presented as optional narratives, but as factors that must be evidenced if they are used to justify a gap.
A central operational point in the exchange is the 5% threshold. As described in the transcript, if a gender pay gap within a category of workers remains above 5% after objective explanatory factors have been taken into account, employers are expected to act. One route is to implement corrective measures directly. If that does not happen within six months, the directive requires a joint pay assessment. The discussion presents this not as a purely technical requirement, but as a governance trigger: once a gap cannot be justified on gender-neutral grounds, the organization moves from analysis into formal remediation. The purpose is not only to identify unjustified differences, but also to remediate them and help prevent comparable issues from recurring.
At the same time, the conversation warns against misunderstanding the threshold as a new fairness benchmark. Margrét makes clear that a 5% adjusted gap is still substantial, even within a defined worker category. For organizations that already pursue pay equity seriously, the existence of this threshold should not normalize higher residual gaps or weaken the ambition to reach zero unjustified difference. Henrike reinforces this point from a practical implementation perspective. Companies that are already working toward zero through structured pay analysis, certification, and category-level review are not moving in the wrong direction. Rather, they are often building exactly the kind of discipline Article 10 assumes, even if the directive introduces a different formal trigger and sequence.
Taken together, the exchange presents Article 10 as the part of the directive that turns pay gap measurement into organizational consequence. It requires employers to understand their worker categories, to analyze pay differences with defensible criteria, and to move into remediation where justification fails. But the broader message remains deliberately clear: compliance with Article 10 is not the same as achieving fair pay. In the logic of this Coffee Talk Special, Article 10 is an important mechanism for action, but fair pay still requires a wider and more ambitious commitment to sustained pay equity governance.