⚡ EU Pay Transparency Directive · Right to Information active June 7, 2026 · No grace period · See your country →

EU Pay Transparency Directive — Enforcement: June 7, 2026

HR systems store facts.
We store reasoning.

ReasonGrid governs every compensation decision before it’s finalised — capturing rationale in real time, flagging risks instantly, and building the defensible audit trail your organisation needs from June 7.

June 7
2026 Enforcement
3%
Global payroll penalty
Day 1
Right to Information
40k+
EU companies in scope
The Problem

The reasoning behind pay decisions
disappears the moment they’re made.

“The decision might be reasonable. It might even be the right one. But the reasoning behind it disappears.”— Founder & CEO, ReasonGrid

Months later, when someone asks why a compensation decision was made, the organisation struggles to reconstruct the rationale. A pay adjustment looks inconsistent. A regulator asks for justification — and the evidence simply isn’t there.

01 /The decision happens across email threads, Slack messages, and quick conversations between HR and leadership.
02 /The rationale lives in the heads of the people who made the call — never captured, never stored in the HRIS.
03 /Context changes. People move on. When an employee or regulator asks why — the evidence is gone.
04 /From June 7, 2026 the EU Directive shifts the burden of proof to the employer. Every decision must be explainable on demand.
The Right to Information

The burden of proof has
shifted entirely to you.

The directive doesn’t just require you to report a pay gap. It requires you to justify why a specific person is paid what they are paid relative to peers — at the moment they ask. If the rationale wasn’t captured when the decision was made, it cannot be reconstructed.

What the directive actually requires

Any employee in the EU may formally request their comparator group data and the documented justification for their individual compensation positioning. The employer must respond with structured, verifiable evidence. The default assumption in any dispute is discrimination — unless the employer can prove otherwise.

3% of global annual payroll
maximum penalty per violation
How It Works

Governance at the moment
of decision.

ReasonGrid sits inside the exact moment a manager proposes a pay change. Before the decision is finalised, your configurable risk checks run instantly and a structured rationale is captured automatically.

📋
Pay Proposal
Manager submits offer, adjustment, or promotion
→
⚡
ReasonGrid
Configurable risk checks fire. Risks flagged. Rationale captured in real time.
→
✓
Approved Decision
Defensible audit trail built automatically. Timestamped. Searchable.

Without ReasonGrid. With ReasonGrid.

Without ReasonGrid
✕Decisions made in isolation — rationale in managers’ heads
✕Gaps discovered in annual reports, 12 months too late
✕Rationale reconstructed after the fact — or not at all
✕Scramble when an employee or regulator asks why
✕Damage control by design
With ReasonGrid
✓Every decision evaluated and documented in real time
✓Gaps prevented at the source, before they’re created
✓Rationale captured at the moment of decision
✓The answer already exists in the system when asked
✓Integrity by design, not by luck
Real Warnings. Real Time.

Before the decision is made.
Not after.

A manager proposes a promotion. Before anyone approves it, your configured risk checks run automatically. Warnings surface. The decision can still be corrected.

That is the difference between governance and reporting.

Example decision — illustrative of live platform behaviour.

Foundations to Firewall

Fix the structural gaps
before June.

Most companies arrive at the deadline with inconsistent job architecture, salary bands that don’t hold cross-border, and undocumented exceptions. We fix that first. Then ReasonGrid governs every decision going forward.

Job architecture audit and alignment across entities
Salary band review and cross-border consistency
Comparator group mapping per role and jurisdiction
Regression analysis to identify existing pay gaps
Rationale documentation for existing decisions
ReasonGrid onboarding for ongoing governance

Readiness Sprint

Typically 4–6 weeks · Delivered alongside your team

Week 1–2

Audit & Discovery

Job architecture review, salary band mapping, gap analysis

Week 2–3

Structure & Alignment

Comparator group definition, band alignment, rationale framework

Week 3–4

Gap Remediation

Regression analysis, priority adjustments, decision documentation

Week 5–6

Platform Onboarding

ReasonGrid configured, team trained, governance live

EU Pay Transparency Directive 2023/970

The deadline is not soft.
It is enforced in national law.

JUN 2026
Pre-Employment TransparencySalary ranges must be published in job ads or shared before interviews.
JUN 2026
Right to Information — Day 1Any employee can request comparator pay data and the specific justification for their compensation. No grace period.
JUN 2026
Burden of Proof ShiftsIn any pay dispute, the employer must prove the decision was non-discriminatory — not the employee.
JUN 2027
Pay Gap ReportingCompanies with 100+ EU employees must report gender pay gap data. First report due June 2027.
JUN 2026
Joint Pay AssessmentIf a pay gap exceeds 5% in any comparator group, a mandatory joint assessment is triggered.

The gap most companies miss.

Most companies think compliance means publishing salary bands. They put bands on Notion or in job ads and consider the job done.

The harder obligation is the Right to Information at the individual level. When an employee asks not just “what is the band” but “why am I positioned where I am within it” — that requires a structured, documented rationale captured at the time the decision was made.

This is the gap ReasonGrid solves. Not the band. The rationale behind where someone sits within it.

--
days until enforcementJune 7, 2026 — obligations become enforceable in national law across all EU member states.
Platform Capabilities

Six tools. One governance layer.

⚡
Real-Time Risk Warnings
Issues flagged at the moment of decision — before submission, not in next month’s report.
⚙
Policy Rules Engine
Encode your pay policies so every decision is automatically checked against your own standards.
≡
Rationale Library
Structured justifications managers select to document positioning — consistent, defensible, searchable.
◎
Risk Radar
Exposure analysis across your workforce, ranked by severity, at any point in time.
▣
Directive Readiness Score
Live dashboard showing your compliance posture against the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
↗
One-Click Audit Export
All decisions, rationale, risk results, and approval chains packaged instantly when anyone asks.
Why We Built This
Founder & CEO

Built with direct experience from compensation and HR teams across startups, scaleups, and hyperscalers.

Google Meta Workday Scaleups Hyperscalers
“The reasoning behind a pay decision often disappears the moment it’s made. That’s fine — until someone asks for it.”

Every compensation team I’ve worked with has the same problem. On paper, the system looks structured — salary bands, job levels, carefully written policies. But the moment a real situation arises, the decision happens in an email thread, a Slack message, a quick conversation between HR and leadership.

The reasoning disappears. Months later, nobody can explain why. A pay adjustment that seemed sensible looks inconsistent. A promotion creates a gap nobody anticipated. A regulator or employee asks for justification — and the evidence simply isn’t there.

I saw this pattern everywhere — at fast-moving startups, at hyperscalers with thousands of employees, and at every stage in between. For a long time it was manageable. Companies could operate with opacity around pay decisions because nobody was formally entitled to ask.

That changes on June 7, 2026.

ReasonGrid exists to make every compensation decision explainable, consistent, and transparent — before anyone asks. Not just because it’s legally required. Because it’s the right way to run a company.

Working with Total Rewards and People teams across Germany · France · Netherlands · Spain · Ireland · Sweden ahead of the June 2026 deadline

Book a Demo

See it before your
next hire.

30 minutes. We’ll show you exactly how ReasonGrid works against your specific situation — no generic walkthrough.

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No commitment · 30-minute call · Live product walkthrough

Or email us at hello@reasongrid.io

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Dublin, Ireland · EU