{"id":575680,"date":"2026-07-08T20:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/575680\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T20:16:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:16:26","slug":"pay-transparency-rules-could-cause-conflict-in-workplaces-say-hr-and-law-experts-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/575680\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay transparency rules could cause conflict in workplaces, say HR and law experts \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Employers need to be preparing for new pay transparency rules, despite their delay in Ireland, according to human resources and employment law professionals. They also believe the new measures could lead to discontent and conflict among employees.<\/p>\n

The European Union\u2019s<\/a> Pay Transparency Directive, which will see employers obliged to disclose salary ranges to job applicants and provide more pay information to employees, was due to be transposed into law in each EU member state by a June 7th deadline.<\/p>\n

However, work is continuing on the required legislation in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Despite the delay, Moira Grassick, chief operations officer at employment law and HR firm Peninsula Ireland, says employers should be taking action to prepare for its implementation due to the level of work that will be required.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would make things much smoother and it also shows employees that they\u2019re being proactive,\u201d she says. \u201cMy sense is [that] employees are waiting for that and employers should be getting ahead of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Is the new guy earning more than you? New pay rules will reveal the truth<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The \u201cexpectation in Ireland\u201d, Grassick says, is that salary details may need to be included in job advertisements, which could cause discontent among existing employees in similar roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could be advertising a job that\u2019s \u20ac5,000 or \u20ac6,000 more than the person who\u2019s actually in the job, so that has the potential to cause a bit of a ruckus,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Damien McCarthy, founder and chief executive of consultancy firm HR Buddy, says employers expected the auto-enrolment<\/a> pension scheme introduced this year to be \u201ca huge load of work\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was a worry about the introduction of pension auto-enrolment, this is going to a lot more difficult and complex for workplaces to comply with,\u201d he says, noting that \u201can awful lot of the work\u201d required for auto-enrolment was handled by the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA).<\/p>\n

Much of the action required under the pay transparency rules, however, will be up to employers, he says. He is \u201cworking closely\u201d with clients to prepare, despite the legislation\u2019s delay, \u201cfor however long it\u2019s delayed, we don\u2019t know, and there\u2019s an awful lot of uncertainty around that as well which also causes frustration\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

Like Grassick, he says there is \u201cno doubt\u201d the new rules could give rise to conflict in workplaces. Among other things, employees will be able to request the average pay for their role from their employers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo employee is going to get a list of [employee salaries], you\u2019re going to get an average, but it\u2019s still going to cause trouble,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Although he supports the directive\u2019s intent \u2013 to reduce the gender pay gap<\/a> \u2013 McCarthy is critical of the new rules, saying they will be \u201ctying rope around the employer or organisation\u201d as opposed to \u201cdealing with gender pay gaps from a positive point of view, going to the root cause\u201d.<\/p>\n

To bring about pay equality, McCarthy believes \u201cyou have to go back to the root causes rather than just introducing more rules and compliance, box-ticking legislation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s things like lack of childcare resources, the cost of childcare in this country and you need to go back to employment legislation and look at how other countries are doing this better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome Scandinavian countries have shared maternity rights,\u201d he says by way of example.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur employment law is outdated. They\u2019re doing it better in other countries and what we do is we just take box-ticking legislation from the EU and think we\u2019re heroes for introducing more rules,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

If you have work-related questions, from how to deal with burnout to running your own business or these incoming regulations, The Irish Times Work Q&A column is here to help. You can use the form below to submit your question. Please limit your submissions to 400 words or less and please include a phone number. Your name and contact details will be confidential and only be used for verification purposes. Any details about your employer will also be anonymised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Employers need to be preparing for new pay transparency rules, despite their delay in Ireland, according to human…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[21434,79,18,2219,12095,19,17,80,162346],"class_list":["post-575680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-auto-enrolment","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-european-union","tag-gender-pay","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-work","tag-work-q-a"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116886201045482315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}