Pay transparency with 4PLAN: Creating fair salaries with transparency
Pay transparency in practice – not just on paper
The EU Pay Transparency Directive will require companies with 100 or more employees to comply with extensive reporting obligations from 2026. But pay transparency is more than compliance: it forms the basis for fair compensation decisions, employee retention and employer attractiveness.
Many software solutions provide isolated analysis tools for gender pay gap reporting. 4PLAN goes one step further: we integrate pay transparency directly into your operational workforce planning and salary rounds. This turns a legal obligation into a strategic advantage.
The challenge:
- Meet the reporting requirements of the EU directive (adjusted and unadjusted gender pay gap)
- Identify salary gaps and close them systematically
- Create transparent compensation structures without additional workload
- Integrate pay transparency into ongoing salary rounds
- Strengthen employee trust through transparent and understandable salary decisions
From analysis to action
Identify salary gaps and close them directly in the system. Simulate salary adjustments and immediately see their impact on the gender pay gap and the overall budget. This transforms transparency into concrete and fair compensation decisions.
Compliance without additional effort
Meet the reporting requirements of the EU Pay Transparency Directive automatically and be ready to provide information to your employees at any time. 4PLAN calculates adjusted and unadjusted gender pay gaps according to legal requirements, prepares all relevant KPIs and creates custom reports for management, works councils and authorities – all based on your existing HR data.
Integration into your HR controlling
Connect pay transparency with strategic workforce planning. View compensation structures in the context of FTE planning, personnel costs and capacity management. Dashboards present all relevant KPIs at a glance – enabling informed decisions rather than isolated reports. In addition, multi-year traceability allows you to demonstrate continuous progress in closing salary gaps – both internally and externally.
Pay transparency directly within the salary review process
Integrate pay transparency metrics seamlessly into your annual salary review process. See gender pay gaps and salary disparities not only afterwards, but directly while planning salary adjustments. This enables fair compensation decisions in real time – without additional analysis rounds.
With the introduction of 4PLAN HR, personnel costs have become significantly more transparent, flexible and reliable in planning.
Niklas Hartmannsgruber
Danone GmbH
Key functions for transparent compensation planning
Salary planning
FTE and capacity planning
How customers use 4PLAN
Oberberg Clinics half their personnel planning effort
Challenge
- Excel-based planning could not keep up with business growth
- High time consumption for manual tasks performed by qualified staff
- Lack of transparency and unreliable data created decision-making challenges
Solution
- Implementation of 4PLAN with integrations, collective agreement logic and dashboards
- Capability for simulations, group-wide analyses and independent administration
- 50% less planning time, improved data quality and more reliable processes
Reliable Staff Cost Planning and More Efficient Processes Within a Regulated Framework
Challenge
- Excel-based staff cost planning with high time consumption and low flexibility
- State regulation and efficiency requirements made accurate workforce planning essential
- Need to plan workforce reductions without specifying individual positions
Solution
- Introduction of 4PLAN with features for ‘negative NNs’ and a dual organisational structure
- Detailed reports on headcount and KPIs at employee level
- Significant reduction in planning variances as well as major time savings
Would you like to implement pay transparency in your organisation?
Meet legal requirements while creating fair and transparent compensation structures. In a non-binding conversation, we will show you how 4PLAN integrates pay transparency seamlessly into your operational workforce planning.
In a short conversation, the fastest way to clarify how your individual pay transparency challenges can be solved.
Stefan Hörmann
Team Lead Sales
Further content
Frequently Asked Questions
Pay transparency refers to the open and understandable presentation of compensation structures within companies. From 2026, the EU Pay Transparency Directive requires companies with 100 or more employees to regularly report on gender pay gaps (adjusted and unadjusted). Companies must take action if the adjusted gender pay gap exceeds 5%. In addition, applicants and employees must be informed about salary ranges. Non-compliance may result in significant penalties.
4PLAN is not an isolated analysis tool but an integrated HR controlling solution. While specialised pay transparency tools usually focus only on gender pay gap analysis and reporting, 4PLAN integrates pay transparency directly into your operational workforce planning and salary review process. You can view compensation structures in the context of FTE planning, personnel costs and capacity management – and simulate and implement salary adjustments directly. This transforms pay transparency from a compliance topic into a strategic management tool.
There are various specialised tools that focus on gender pay gap analysis and compliance reporting. Large HR suites also offer modules for pay transparency. 4PLAN positions itself as an integrated HR controlling solution that connects pay transparency with operational workforce planning, salary review processes and budget management. The advantage: your HR data is already in the system – you simply use it for pay transparency analyses, the pay transparency report and other reports.
With 4PLAN, you automate pay transparency reports through direct integration with your HR master data. The system automatically calculates relevant KPIs such as adjusted and unadjusted gender pay gaps, analyses salary gaps across different dimensions (gender, position, department, hierarchy) and prepares all data required for reporting obligations. Instead of manually collecting data in Excel, you can create meaningful reports with just a few clicks.
Have you got further questions?
Simply write to us. Our experts will be happy to help you.
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