THE FAIR PAY INNOVATION LAB – WHAT WE DO
The FPI ensures equal opportunities in every company and awards them the UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK®. Our goal: fair pay for all people in the world.
We show possible solutions how to implement a pay system that is fair for all employees: Those who ensure neutral, objective, and stereotype-free structures leave no room for discrimination. In this way, wage gaps such as the gender pay gap, age gaps, or ethnicity gaps can be closed, and a renewed divergence of wage gaps is prevented. At the beginning of a remuneration strategy, there is always an analysis: On this basis, measures and instruments can be identified, implemented, and monitored in a tailored manner.
In order to develop the best strategies and find the most suitable measures and instruments, we constantly monitor the latest developments, collect diverse examples of best practices and ensure a constructive exchange between companies. We connect people and think out of the box. We share our fair pay knowledge with decision-makers and experts in companies and institutions around the world: we are situated at the interfaces between economy, academia, and politics.
To support companies in implementing fair pay since March 2021 we award them the UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK®, the currently most effective certification for fair pay. The internationally recognized certification process offers reliable guidance in the complex certification jungle and is impactful monitoring, management, and communication tool in the implementation of equal opportunities and equality in companies and organizations. In Germany, the UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK® is awarded under the patronage of Hubertus Heil, the German Federal Minister of Labour.
As an NGO, we take part in the global discussion on sustainability topics and contribute our expertise towards decision-making at the UN level. In summer 2021, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) has granted us special consultative status.
We are strongly convinced that equal opportunities are the key to achieving international sustainability goals and that fair pay is key to equal opportunities for all people – no matter where they come from, who they love, or what they believe in.
What has happened so far
The Fair Pay Innovation Lab was founded in the summer of 2017 by Henrike von Platen in Berlin. Since then, we have conducted numerous Fair Pay Management Circles and a large Best Practice Summit in Berlin, Germany, held a number of lectures and seminars, discussed with hundreds of experts from business, academia, and politics, and searched for the fastest ways to achieve fair payment in New York, Reykjavík, and Davos.
Progress is visible: since 2017, the German law on pay transparency has guaranteed employees the right to transparency. In Great Britain, reporting obligations make differences in income visible. In France, companies are monitored by an equality index. And in Iceland, the most effective equal pay laws in the world are shrinking the pay gap. A variety of software offers help with the implementation and the Icelandic Equal Pay Standard is applicable in every country, every industry, every company.
Three years after its foundation, it was high time to link the many Fair Pay threads together on an international level: The Corona crisis has made it even more apparent how unfair many areas and industries are all over the world. At the same time, many companies have to bundle their energies and save their resources. In the summer of 2020, the FPI, therefore, teamed up with the best analysis partner in the world. Since then, the UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK® sheds a light on the jungle of measures and enlightens the global certification chaos.
WHO WE ARE
HENRIKE VON PLATEN
C.E.O./Founder
Henrike founded the FPI 2017 with a single goal: Fair Pay, in every business worldwide.
As a management consultant and financial expert, she knows what challenges companies face in practice - and that change is possible where power, money, and the will to change meet. For many years she was president of Business and Professional Women Germany e.V. and patron of the German Equal Pay Day campaign. In 2016, she initiated a nationwide Fair Pay Alliance. Since 2021, she has been certifying companies worldwide with the UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK she developed.
Henrike is a university counselor at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich, at AdAR in the section Certified Supervisory Board Members, speaker, and author. Henrike is the heart, face, and head of the FPI. Anyone who has worked with her knows that anything is possible - and faster than you might think.
Contact: hvp@fpi-lab.org