JTI Success Story

Leading the Pack: How JTI Future-Proofed its Global Pay Equity Strategy for the EU Pay Transparency Directive

JTI has built its global rewards philosophy around fairness. Across more than 130 countries and 40,000+ employees, the company holds itself to a clear standard — that people doing work of equal value should be paid equally, regardless of background or identity. When the EU Pay Transparency Directive arrived, JTI didn't scramble. But it did recognize that its existing pay equity methodology needed to change to comply with the new directive. 

Through PayAnalytics by beqom, JTI moved beyond its previous practices by introducing automation and real-time gap monitoring. This not only strengthens decision-making at the point of need, but more importantly enables clearer visibility on budget requirements and more effective planning of remediation actions.

Challenge

The limits of a manual methodology

JTI has long placed fairness and equity at the heart of its rewards philosophy. Across more than 130 countries, the company operates according to five core principles: competitive pay, recognition of performance, flexibility and choice, transparency, and fairness and equity. Regardless of background or identity, employees who provide similar value should be rewarded equitably.

To support this, JTI implemented a structured pay equity methodology. The central rewards team calculated pay gaps and shared results with local People & Culture leads, who provided context and requested budget to address any identified gaps. For years, this process was underpinned by the EY Pay Equity Methodology, introduced in 2013 and anchored to a 5% threshold — a standard JTI had already set ahead of what legislation would later require.

But as the EU Pay Transparency Directive came into force, JTI recognised the limitations of its existing approach. It could not analyze pay equity by category of worker—a core Directive requirement—limiting the organization's ability to identify and address gaps at the required level of granularity. Furthermore, it lacked some capabilities, specifically the integration of multiple objective factors, multi-scenario impact modeling, and a structured framework for planning remediation budgets and actions.

Solution

A tool built for what the Directive demands

JTI expanded its use of PayAnalytics by beqom, accessing advanced capabilities that combine technology with deep pay equity expertise to address increasingly complex challenges. It unlocked four things the previous approach could not deliver:

• It surfaces pay gaps in real time as soon as data is loaded.
• It analyses equity by category of worker, meeting the Directive's specific reporting requirements.
• It generates raise suggestions at the individual level, so corrective action is immediate and guided rather than manual and approximate.
• It delivers pay explainability reports, giving employees visibility into how their pay is determined and building a culture of trust and transparency across the organization.

The difference this makes in practice is concrete. PayAnalytics by beqom identified opportunities to uplift — because the category-of-worker analysis revealed what aggregate figures had hidden.

A partnership built on expertise and adaptability 

When JTI came to PayAnalytics by beqom with specific requirements during the initial pilot, those needs were heard and addressed quickly. Building on the strong foundations established during the pilot project with the support of Willis Towers Watson, the PayAnalytics by beqom team brought hands-on support, deep knowledge of pay equity regulations across multiple markets, and the ability to move at pace — acting as a true partner rather than just a software provider. 

Functionalities evolved in response to client feedback, with the team partnering closely with JTI to address one of the more complex challenges posed by the Directive: how to communicate pay information directly to employees. The Pro package meaningfully improves pay explainability through functionalities such as Right to Information and pay explainability reports. Enhancing JTI’s existing transparency culture, strengthens confidence in pay decisions and reinforces trust in fair pay.

Benefits

Pay equity that goes beyond compliance

By expanding its use of PayAnalytics by beqom, JTI moved from a methodology that was reaching its limits to a platform and partnership that matches the scale, complexity, and evolving requirements of global pay equity management. The results are concrete — and the ambition goes further.

By working with PayAnalytics by beqom, JTI has:

• Achieved its 5% pay gap threshold — the first milestone on the journey to closing gaps entirely across a global workforce.
• Replaced low-headcount analysis with statistically robust results that can be defended at a local and global level.
• Gained the ability to analyze and action pay equity by category of worker — surfacing issues that aggregate figures alone would miss.
• Built the infrastructure for direct employee communication and pay explainability, utilizing Right to Information functionality to address individual pay equity and gap inquiries.
• Extended the pay equity conversation beyond the rewards function, bringing talent, line management, and business partnership teams into a shared, data-grounded process.

JTI has already hit its first target. The next step is to go further with PayAnalytics by beqom — closing gaps more tightly, deepening pay transparency, and delivering on the promise that every employee, everywhere, earns fairly for the value they bring.