According to the latest “Trends 2025: Pay Transparency” survey conducted by the Compensation & Benefits Club at Lazarski University over 80% of companies in Poland are currently at the initial stage of collecting information on pay transparency and preparing employees for changes planned in this area. At the same time, almost half (49%) of enterprises indicate that they do not have any tools they could use to prepare to meet the requirements of the EU directive, and one in five organisations have no knowledge of remuneration management. The survey’s findings confirm that pay transparency is a significant adaptation challenge for companies, which may need external technological and advisory support to meet upcoming guidelines and employee expectations.
By 7 June 2026, under the EU directive (EU 2023/970), Poland is obliged to introduce local regulations on pay transparency and pay gap reporting. The aim of the changes in the law is to ensure equal pay for women and men for work of equal value, as well as to create transparent pay structures in companies. Although it seems that there is still a lot of time until the new regulations are introduced, experts say that the process of preparing the organisation is not the easiest.
– To meet the requirements of the directive, it is not enough to calculate and report the pay gap. The situation is much more complicated. Employers will need to review or develop their pay systems. As a result, a transparent pay structure and clear promotion paths should be created, considering the extended definition of remuneration. According to the information contained in the directive, remuneration will include not only wages, but also other employment-related benefits, e.g. training. Transparency is both an opportunity for companies to strengthen their competitiveness as employers, but also a significant, time-consuming challenge – explains Joanna Liksza, MyBenefit expert at Benefit Systems and head of the Compensation & Benefits postgraduate studies at Lazarski University.
No precise guidelines
The results of the “Trends 2025: Pay Transparency” survey conducted in the first quarter of 2025 by the Compensation & Benefits Club at Lazarski University indicate that over 80% of organisations operating in Poland are currently at the initial level of preparations to implement the principles of pay transparency. These companies are now focusing on supplementing their knowledge in the field of compensation management and preparing employees to implement changes. More than half of the organisations indicate the lack of Polish regulations and management readiness to act, as well as the lack of IT tools supporting the process of implementing these changes as a significant problem.
– On the one hand, this is an understandable limitation. It is difficult to prepare without precise guidelines. However, the EU directive itself indicates certain directions that are worth considering and starting the process today. For example, it provides objective and neutral criteria that should be considered when building a pay structure, such as skills, responsibility, working conditions and effort. Moreover, when building a pay scale, soft skills cannot be ignored. The purpose of these guidelines is to counteract the persistence of the pay gap. Analysing the organisational structure, verifying the list of positions, creating categories and defining development paths considering the above criteria are the first actions that companies should take and can start working on them now. Dedicated IT tools can prove extremely useful in this process – emphasises Joanna Liksza, who is also the supervisor of the survey.
Companies lack technology
As many as 49% of companies taking part in the survey by the Compensation & Benefits Club, whose partners include Benefit Systems, indicated that they lack tools that would help them prepare to implement the principles of remuneration transparency. The benefits market is already addressing these needs.
– Non-financial benefits are usually associated with solutions that are intended to support employee wellbeing, but they are also beginning to develop facilities and functionalities aimed at facilitating and streamlining the work of HR and personnel departments. MyBenefit has adopted such a development strategy, which has also introduced solutions for employers themselves, the so-called HR Tools. These are tools that enable companies to integrate various HR and benefits processes in a coherent environment. One of the new tools currently being developed within MyBenefit – previously known mainly from cafeteria applications – is a remuneration module that will help companies go through every stage of preparing and reporting pay transparency. We are already in the phase of implementing the functionality with the first clients. We entered the payroll market because we know perfectly well that companies will need technological support in the upcoming process – explains Paweł Kornosz, Managing Director for Cafeteria Platforms at Benefit Systems.
The “Trends 2025: Pay Transparency” survey shows that the median readiness of the surveyed companies to implement the directive is currently 367 out of 2,400 possible points. Although the forecasts for the first quarter of 2026 predict an increase to 502 points, according to the authors of the survey, this is still a low level. From 2026, all companies will have to apply pay transparency rules. Additionally, those of them that have at least 100 employees will be required to report the pay gap. Companies will submit their first reports for 2026 in 2027.
Data from the “Trends 2025: Pay Transparency” survey, which is an annual study conducted by students of the Compensation & Benefits postgraduate studies at Lazarski University. The aim of the survey was to determine the level of maturity of the organisations to implement pay transparency. The survey was conducted using an anonymous electronic questionnaire between 5 and 31 March 2025. 218 respondents and organisations participated in it. Benefit Systems is one of the survey partners.
