Gender Equality Index: New obligations for businesses

In 2019, the government set up a “Gender Equality Index” aimed at measuring and closing the gender pay gap. For this purpose, companies with at least 50 employees are obliged to publish their results each year by March 1st.

The company must consider different indicators (gender pay gap, difference in the rate of individual wage increases, the number of the under-represented gender among the 10 employees who get the highest salaries, etc.). The marks obtained for each indicator, following a calculation done according to the method defined by decree, add up and determine the company’s aggregated result of its gender equality performance.

It is this aggregated result, presented in the form of an overall score out of 100, that must be published by March 1st of each year on the company’s website, or, in the absence of a website, it must be brought to the attention of the employees by any other means.

New annual publications

A recent decree imposes new publication obligations on companies to be fulfilled each year by March 1st.

Thus, in addition to the overall score out of 100, they must now publish the results obtained for each indicator. In addition, the overall score and results for each indicator must be displayed “in a visible and readable manner”.

In principle, companies should have published on March 1st, 2021 their overall score for 2020. If this is not the case, they are given a grace period of a few months to comply with these new obligations. Thus, they have until:

- May 1st, 2021 to publish “in a visible and readable manner” the overall score calculated for 2020.

- June 1st, 2021 to publish “in visible and legible manner” the results obtained for each indicator for 2020.

Obligations for companies that have benefited from the stimulus package

The Finance Act for 2021 introduced requirements for companies with more than 50 employees who benefited from the loans opened as part of the stimulus package.

Thus, by March 1st of each year, companies with an overall score of less than 75% will have to set improvement targets for each indicator for which the expected score has not been reached. The targets are determined on gender equality, after negotiation with the employees, or, failing that, by an action plan unilaterally drawn up by the employer after consultation with the Social and Economic Committee.

These improvement targets as well as the planned corrective and catch-up measures should be published on the company’s website or, in the absence of a website, they must be brought to the attention of the employees by any other means. They must also be searchable on the company’s website until it achieves an overall score of at least 75%.