01 December 2026 09:40 - 10:10
Fireside chat - Pay transparency: Where do we actually draw the line?
The first mandatory gender pay action plans are due April 2028, and large UK employers are supposed to be building them now. Full salary transparency is still nobody's legal obligation.
That's exactly where it gets interesting. Some leaders are choosing to go further than the law requires. Just as many are quietly refusing, and won't say so out loud.
This fireside skips the polished version. Expert people leaders will dive into on what they actually disclose, what they deliberately keep close, and what that choice has cost or earned them when it mattered: pay compression, a competitor lifting their comp data, an all-hands that didn't go the way they'd planned.
Most sessions on pay transparency rehearse the business case. This one starts from what actually happened.
Key takeaways:
- The real reasoning behind one leader's pay transparency line, not the version they'd give a journalist.
- What going further than the law requires has actually cost them: pay compression, competitor intelligence, or an uncomfortable all-hands.
- Whether holding back on disclosure is protecting the business, or just protecting them from a harder conversation.