Defining Categories of Workers Ahead of the EU Pay Transparency Directive

The concept of worker categories is woven throughout the EU Pay Transparency Directive. We see it in Article 7, granting employees the right to information about their own pay, and the average pay for employees doing the same work or work of equal value. We also see it in Article 9, requiring employers to report on “the gender pay gap between workers by categories of workers.”

Here’s the definition, from Article 3(h):

Article 4(4) includes the criteria:

"… Those criteria shall not be based directly or indirectly on workers’ sex. They shall include skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions, and, if appropriate, any other factors which are relevant to the specific job or position. They shall be applied in an objective gender-neutral manner, excluding any direct or indirect discrimination based on sex. In particular, relevant soft skills shall not be undervalued."

In short, defining worker categories means considering how each job role adds value to the organization through:

• The skills it requires.
• The effort it demands.
• The responsibility it involves.
• The working conditions it entails.

And then grouping like with like.

Mapping this out for every role in your organization is a sizable task. But this requirement is at the heart of the Directive. By requiring employers to define worker categories, the Directive is asking us to think critically about our pay structures, and make sure they are as unbiased and objective as possible. 

And this shift is having an impact on employers’ practices. According to Mercer’s Global Pay Transparency Report, 48% of organizations studied are already using worker categories, job titles, or job levels to measure gender pay gaps. Many organizations (36%) are revisiting their job architecture so that it includes defined worker categories. 

In this article, we’ll discuss some best practices for defining worker categories, direct you to a useful new toolkit, and point out some common pitfalls to avoid.

Best practices for defining categories of workers

To simplify this process for employers, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) published its job evaluation and classification toolkit in late March 2026. This resource walks employers through the process of reviewing each job based on the four main factors (skills, responsibilities, effort, and working conditions) and determining its value to the organization. 

The toolkit includes MS Excel templates, checklists, and worksheets to help employers design and document their job categories. We highly recommend the EIGE toolkit, and our simplified job evaluation eGuide will also help you more effectively choose and plan your approach.

The EIGE toolkit is not mandatory, so if you want to design your own approach and documentation, you can do that as well. In either case, here is what worker categories should look like. 

Based on objective, job-related factors. 

These include the big four, skills, responsibilities, effort, and working conditions, as well as any other factors unique to the organization or position. 

Represent work of equal value.

All of your employees are necessary to the organization, so trying to quantify value can be tough without a structured approach. The EIGE toolkit recommends the graduated factor comparison method for small organizations, the pair comparison method for small-to-medium organizations, and the point-factor method for larger organizations.

Large enough for meaningful comparison.

Each category needs to support demographic analysis, and that becomes difficult if a category only has one or two employees. If your categories are too small, consider thinking across departments. For instance, even though a finance analyst, a sales analyst, and a product analyst all do different things, are their jobs close enough in skills, responsibilities, effort, and working conditions to merit categorizing them together?

Independent of pay outcomes. 

If all employees within a category happen to fall into the same fairly narrow pay range, that’s great, but it shouldn’t be an expectation. Trying too hard to anchor your new categories to your current pay structures can result in categories that are difficult to justify and report on. 

Explainable and defensible.

Make sure to document your thought processes and the reasons for your decisions. The EIGE toolkit will help with this, or you can keep your own records. 

Common pitfalls to avoid when defining categories of workers

Based on years of experience helping organizations map their categories of workers, here are some common mistakes to be aware of.  

1. Defining categories based on outcomes. These could be pay outcomes, as mentioned above, or jobs that lead to performance-based bonuses or commission.
2. Making categories too narrow. Especially in larger organizations, it’s tempting to map out job categories based on intersections of multiple variables, like country, organizational entity, job title, job grade, and department. However, this might undermine your ability to make meaningful comparisons, and overcomplicate your category structure. 
3. Using subjective or vague criteria. Statements like “importance to business” or “high potential employees” are hard to explain or defend. Instead, dig down into the skills, responsibilities, effort, and working conditions. Is a particular role important to the business because it requires high responsibility? Or do employees within a role tend to advance because the role demands a high level of critical thinking?

How beqom can help

When you’re defining categories of workers, having visibility into your current pay structure is essential. beqom’s Pay Equity & Transparency tool allows you to compare groups of employees, spot patterns that might indicate bias, such as when women dominated roles are clustering lower than expected, measure and close pay gaps by category of worker and deep dive into your data. And when reporting time comes around, you can generate Directive-compliant reports and employee pay transparency statements at the click of a button.