On April 1, 2025, AmCham hosted an event to discuss the EU Equal Pay Directive, an initiative designed to close the gender wage gap in Europe. We were honored to begin the session with insights from Samira Rafaela, former member of the EU Parliament and Visiting Fellow at ILR Law School, who was instrumental in passing this initiative. Following her talk, expert Andrew Poole discussed technical aspects that companies should both be aware of, and start preparing for, before they go into effect in June 2026. Attendees were able to hear from and ask questions to a panel that included Mairead MacLure, Global Head of Rewards at Signify, Ed d’Hooghe, Lead HR Director EMEAI, and Arif Ender, Director Compensation EMEA & LATAM at Palo Alto Networks, moderated by Andrew Davies, Enterprise Client Leader and Chemicals Co-Leader at Aon.
The EU Equal Pay Directive is about identifying unjustified gender pay gaps and ensuring they do not exceed 5%. The most helpful thing a company can do to prepare for the directive is to understand the need for change and its role within it. The next step is to communicate, ensure consistency in messaging, including to those in leadership positions, and identify change agents. From there, more action can be taken, such as training people, collecting data, and creating easy-to-reference FAQs for team members. Two of the largest contributors to unequal pay are differences in starting salaries and bias. These are also opportunity areas for impactful changes that align with the directive.
