Employees Earning Lowest Wage (OI8296)

Number of full-time, part-time, and temporary employees of the organization that are earning the lowest hourly wage (including bonuses, excluding benefits) paid by the organization as of the end of the reporting period. See usage guidance for further details.

This metric has been updated.

Please click here to see the most up-to-date version and refer to Metric History for details on the changes.

Calculation:

$Organizations should footnote the lowest wage paid by the organization in each country of operation, whether it meets or exceeds the local minimum wage for the region(s) in which they operate, and any other assumptions made in calculating this metric. See usage guidance for further information.$

Reporting Format Unit Referenced within Metric Definition
Metric Type Metric
Metric Level Organization
IRIS Metric Citation IRIS, 2021. Employees Earning a Living Wage or Higher (OI4724). v5.2.

Footnote

Organizations should footnote the lowest wage paid by the organization in each country of operation, whether it meets or exceeds the local minimum wage for the region(s) in which they operate, and any other assumptions made in calculating this metric. See usage guidance for further information.

Usage Guidance

This metric is intended to measure the number of employees earning the lowest hourly wage paid by the organization during the reporting period. For example, if the organization's lowest wage paid (including bonuses, excluding benefits) is USD 15 per hour and the organizations pays 300 employees this rate, the value for this metric is 300. Organizations should also footnote what the lowest wage paid is in order to enable minimum wage calculations.
To use this metric effectively, organizations working across multiple geographies should capture it at the country level. For each country, organizations should capture the lowest hourly wage paid and the number of employees earning that wage. In the event that an organization is unable to capture these data for each country, organizations are encouraged to capture this metric for the country with the largest number of employees.
For salaried workers, organizations may calculate hourly wage by dividing total annual wages by number of hours worked. This metric can be useful in capturing whether a portion of the organization's workforce is paid less than minimum wage. Organizations interested in capturing minimum wage or living wage may instead use Employees Earning Minimum Wage (OI5858) and Employees Earning a Living Wage or Higher (OI4724).
In some contexts, this metric can serve as an indicator of whether the outcome being sought by an investor or organization is occurring (the WHAT dimension of impact). For more on the alignment of IRIS metrics to the five dimensions of impact, see IRIS+ and the Five Dimensions of Impact (https://iris.thegiin.org/document/iris-and-the-five-dimensions/). No single metric is sufficient to understand an impact; rather, metrics are selected as a set across all dimensions of impact. When possible, the selection of metrics to measure and describe the five dimensions should be based on best practice and evidence.

Employees Earning Lowest Wage (OI8296)

Calculation:

Footnote

Usage Guidance

Impact Categories & Themes

SDG Goals & Targets

IRIS Metrics Work Better in Sets