Press Release: Universal Fair Pay Check

Berlin – The Berlin-based not-for-profit Fair Pay Innovation Lab (FPI) is today launching a new certification process for companies who want to pay their employees fairly. The “Universal Fair Pay Check” can be applied anywhere in the world, at any site, regardless of payroll size. It brings together legal initiatives from Iceland, the UK, and Switzerland, uniting them in one process. Over the course of three phases, companies can swiftly close any existing pay gaps. The pilot firms include the German insurance company Allianz Deutschland AG, the second-largest Icelandic energy firm Reykjavik Energy and the digital agency Rheingans Digital Enabler.

To this day, some people earn less than others, even in the same company, for the same and equivalent work. So there are still unfair differences in income between people of different ages, different origins, religions, or sexual orientations all over the world. The best known is the so-called gender pay gap, which averages 23 percent worldwide. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), at the present rate, it would take another 70 years to close the pay gap between men and women.

In order to speed up the process independently of equal pay legislation, the Universal Fair Pay Check brings together pay analyses from Switzerland, the standardization process from Iceland, and British transparency requirements. The effectiveness of equality policies and diversity programs is also made measurable on the basis of employee salaries, across countries and across industry sectors. Pay structure analysis shows how wide the gender pay gap and other pay gaps are within a company. On this basis, companies are then given the tools for establishing stereotype-free, neutral, and objective pay structures, and for excluding discrimination for all employees.

“Allianz does not allow any differences in pay for men and women in comparable roles,” says Kathrin Janicke, Head of Rewards & Performance at Allianz Deutschland AG. “For us, the focus is on bringing more women into management roles and into better-paid positions. We use the precise analysis provided by the Universal Fair Pay Check to identify additional measures.”

And Lasse Rheingans, head of the digital agency Rheingans Digital Enabler, which became known for introducing the five-hour day for all employees, is making a stand for transparency and for closing all pay gaps by participating in the Universal Fair Pay Check. The agency’s founder says it is “inconceivable to how organizations can still tolerate a gender pay gap in 2020.”

“An easy step for companies, but a huge leap for equal pay,” says Henrike von Platen, founder and CEO of the FPI.” She has spent many years researching solutions to eradicate the worldwide pay gap once and for all. “The Universal Fair Pay Check is both a compass and an advertisement at the same time, and will really move things forward.” The new system has been developed by Henrike von Platen together with equal pay experts from around the world.

From today, interested companies and organizations from anywhere in the world can apply to the not-for-profit Fair Pay Innovation Lab in Berlin for the first round of implementation.

Full details here: www.universal-fair-pay-check.org

Contact: Christine Gräbe | cg@fpi-lab.org | +49 30 83217138