Lindéngruppen has set a Group-wide target to ensure that all employees are paid a living wage or higher. To ensure a consistent and credible assessment, WageIndicator benchmarks have been used as the basis for evaluating wages since 2023.
Beckers conducted a living wage assessment of employees’ pay in 2023 and initiated actions to address identified gaps, with the objective of supporting adequate and sustainable living conditions for all employees, reflecting Beckers’ ambition to align with leading practices on living wages.
As an organisation with 1,700 employees in 26 locations across 18 countries, Beckers needed a robust database that captures and regularly updates regional differences. The company used the WageIndicator database to compare the guaranteed income of its people to do just that.
“Living wages is a topic that can have a positive impact on people by ensuring they have a decent standard of living, but a living wage can have a very different meaning for an employee in the UK compared with an employee in Bangladesh for example,” explains Sam Withers, Manager HR Data at Beckers. “WageIndicator gave us an academically backed methodology and localised living wage data to conduct our first Group-wide analysis.”
This analysis showed that 0.7 per cent of the Beckers workforce – or 14 employees across three countries – earned less than what is deemed a living wage in their region.
“On one hand, it was reassuring that we already paid 99.3 per cent of our employees higher than the local living wage, but we urgently needed to implement a plan to ensure everyone is above this level,” comments Sam Withers. “We helped our country-level management teams interpret the data and worked with the three affected countries to assist them in closing the living wage gaps through their annual salary review process where possible.”
As of 2025, two of the three countries increased all employee wages above the living wage. In the remaining country, Beckers closed almost all gaps, resulting in 99.8 per cent of employees being paid a living wage by the end of 2025.
“Our ambition is for 100 per cent of our employees to earn above the relevant regional living wage thresholds and we are continuously working to ensure this,” says Sam Withers.
Ensuring that Beckers pays living wages is an ongoing process, particularly as the company’s annual salary review integrates up-to-date living wage data. This ensures increasing regional living costs are reflected in HR decision-making.
“Our work to achieve and then maintain living wages will continue, along with our work to eliminate gender pay gaps. We have the right tools and processes in place to minimise inequalities,” concludes Sam Withers.
What is a living wage and WageIndicator?
A living wage is not the same as a legal minimum wage. It is a voluntary benchmark that reflects the income required for a decent standard of living in a specific region, taking into account factors such as food, housing, healthcare and education. For companies like Beckers, committing to living wages means going beyond legal requirements to ensure fair and responsible pay worldwide.
WageIndicator is a global labour research foundation that collects, analyses and shares data on wages, working conditions and labour laws across more than 150 countries. It provides tools such as salary checkers, cost-of-living insights and labour law comparisons to support workers, employers and policymakers with transparent, accessible information.
