Japan Tobacco International rewards men and women equally and fairly. The company is only the third in the history of the Czech Republic to be certified as paying equal wages to men and women. Meanwhile, on average, women in the Czech Republic earn almost one-fifth less than men in the same position and with the same experience and the pay gap has not narrowed lately.
It goes beyond simply closing the pay gap financially – this is about ensuring governance to prevent pay gap to arise again due to inequalities in various processes. This involves empowering women, enhancing talent management, refining recruitment practices. For the recent three years I believe we progresses significantly in our cluster with the DEI Policy. This year, we took a significant step forward by conducting an external audit across all cluster countries. The audit was not a simple statistical analysis of wages. It comprised of focus group discussions with randomly selected employees, meetings with management, it was a comprehensive evaluation," says Yelena Yugova, JTI's People & Culture Director for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia and adds that JTI was certified for all the three countries headquartered in Prague – Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia.
"EQUAL-SALARY certification is yet another confirmation of why we are the best employer in the Czech Republic. Recently, we have passed the TOP Employer audit for the fourth time as the single best company to work for in the Czech Republic," adds Yugova.
The certification is awarded by the Swiss organisation EQUAL-SALARY Foundation on the basis of a detailed remuneration audit conducted by the consultancy PwC Czech Republic. There’s only about 200 companies certified as such worldwide.
The audit assessed how wages are set for men and women. The first prerequisite is to demonstrate that the gender pay gap, if any, is not higher than five per cent for the same positions. The difficulty and complexity of the work or the length of service of the employee also enter into the assessment.
"For all the measures that we have in place, I would pick our parental leave rules, that allow the secondary caregiver to also take six months of fully paid leave. It's about equality between men and women, but it's also a great opportunity to remove bias during recruitment and in talent management. You can probably imagine a situation where, when interviewing a young woman, the thought flashes through the interviewer’s head that she might be going on maternity leave soon and there would be a need to look for another person again, so it might be easier to recruit a man. Our parental leave policy remove this bias, so not only are we allowing women and men to spend quality time with their families, but we are also removing the subconscious discrimination against women in recruitment and in their further professional development," adds Yelena Yugova.
The audit process consists of a detailed analysis of anonymised data on remuneration in the company. Based on the successful fulfilment of the defined criteria, in-depth interviews with employees and management representatives are then conducted as part of the second phase. It has taken PwC auditors several months to comprehensively analyse JTI's remuneration processes.
"It is no longer the case that the Equal Salary Certification is perceived as "something extra". It is independently verified information not only for the company, its employees and potential applicants, but also for the authorities. Fair and equal remuneration and information about it will soon be legally required based on the European Directive on Transparent Remuneration. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in cooperation with other authorities is already working on amending the relevant Act," explains Andrea Linhartová Palánová, PwC Czech Republic's equal remuneration expert, who led the JTI audit.
The gender pay gap is one of the major obstacles to local and global economic development. According to the latest PwC Women in Work 2024 study, the average gender pay gap in OECD countries is 13.5%. The Czech Republic is even worse off with a pay gap of 17.4%. The sad reality is that this gap has been narrowing only slowly in OECD countries in recent years, and not at all in the Czech Republic.
"If pay gap reduction in OECD countries continues at the same pace as before, we would not see equal pay in place for about 50 years. It is therefore important that companies such as JTI are proactive in their approach to this issue and do their part to change for the better. We are delighted that JTI has opened its doors to our auditors, demonstrated its commitment to equal pay and that we can award the Equal Salary Certification to JTI as only the third company in the Czech Republic," says Lisa Rubli, Co-Director of the EQUAL-SALARY Foundation.
About Equal Salary Certification
The Equal Salary Certification is awarded by the Swiss EQUAL-SALARY Foundation on the basis of an independent audit conducted by PwC. The methodology was developed in collaboration with the University of Geneva. In the Czech Republic, the holders of this certification are Philip Morris, Plzeňský Prazdroj and now JTI. More information can be found at https://www.equalsalary.org/
It goes beyond simply closing the pay gap financially – this is about ensuring governance to prevent pay gap to arise again due to inequalities in various processes. This involves empowering women, enhancing talent management, refining recruitment practices.