
Crystal-clear
Compensation
KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER WHEN
THE PAY TRANSPARENCY ACT, 2018
COMES INTO EFFECT
By Laura Williams
It’s a scenario familiar to any HR professional with experience
navigating the employee interview process:
A candidate and hiring manager meet, with the former ready
to field a series of questions that relate to the position on offer.
So far, so good. However, during the course of the conversation,
the hiring manager asks the candidate what she’s earned in previ-ous
positions and what her salary expectations might be moving
forward. The goal is to determine whether the candidate’s earn-ings
goals align with the compensatory budget set aside to fill the
job. This used to be a relatively straightforward fact-finding pro-cess,
but no longer.
When the Pay Transparency Act, 2018 (the Act) comes into force
Jan. 1, 2019, employers in Ontario will be prohibited from asking
applicants to reveal their compensation history. Organizations will
also be required to include information relating to compensation,
or a range of compensation, in all publicly advertised job postings.
In addition, employers with at least 100 employees will be obliged
to create pay transparency reports. These documents, to be filed
with the Ministry of Labour on an annual basis – beginning in
2020 for employers with 250 employees or more, and in 2021 for
employers with between 100 and 249 employees – must be pub-lished
in the workplace or online and will then be made public by
the government. Reports must include information about:
■■ The employer
■■ The composition of its workforce
■■ Differences in employees’ compensation with respect to gender
Full details as to what additional information will be required
as part of the reporting process are still pending. What we do
know is that employers will be prohibited from reprising against
employees for:
■■ Inquiring about their compensation
■■ Inquiring about pay transparency reports
■■ Disclosing their compensation to other employees
■■ Giving information to the government pertaining to their
employer’s compliance (or non-compliance) with the Act or
its regulations
■■ Asking their employer to comply with the Act or its regulations
22 ❚ OCTOBER 2018 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL