Novartis
Novartis is a Swiss Pharmaceutical operating in over 140 countries, and employing over 100,000 people. In line with their policy on Corporate Citizenship, it makes a commitment to pay fair and competitive wages which clearly exceed what is required to cover basic living needs. It was the first international company to develop and implement a voluntary commitment to paying a living wage to all its employees worldwide.
In a number of countries, the national minimum wage falls short of what is required to meet basic needs. Novartis, being the first company with an international presence to implement the living wage, conducted detailed research and analysis in order to develop specific data points, criteria and mechanisms for setting wages on a country by country basis. It had no established tools or methodologies to rely on. It also had no benchmarks for sense checking.
This is a complex area, even to date. How do you measure sufficiency? What is deemed as enough? What needs are categorised as basic? Do cultural differences come into play?
Novartis worked with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to guide the implementation of its living wage commitments. It identified together a living wage basket for several developing countries in their local currencies, using research conducted in the US and Mexico as a baseline to which a formula was applied. Stakeholders were engaged to comment on, amend and approve the proposed figures.
Approximately three years ago, Novartis had aligned the pay of all employees to living wage levels. Today, it continues to review and improve the standards it has created.
Novartis has offered to share their methodology and assist other firms in implementing the living wage, and is working on extending its commitment to include its suppliers.
