ESRS S1 Workforce Overview
ESRS S1 is the own workforce standard under CSRD — covering working conditions, equal treatment, health and safety, training, pay gaps, and social dialogue for your employees and non-employee workers. With 134 XBRL-tagged datapoints, S1 is typically the largest HR data project a company will undertake.
ESRS S1 is the own workforce standard under CSRD — covering working conditions, equal treatment, health and safety, training, pay gaps, and social dialogue for your employees and non-employee workers. S1-1 Policies for own workforce: HR policies — equal treatment, non-discrimination, working conditions standards, health and safety policy.
The 17 ESRS S1 disclosure requirements
S1-1 Policies for own workforce: HR policies — equal treatment, non-discrimination, working conditions standards, health and safety policy.
S1-2 Processes for engaging with own workers: Worker representation structures, consultation processes, grievance mechanisms.
S1-3 Processes to remediate negative impacts: How the company addresses identified negative impacts on workers — investigation processes, remediation commitments.
S1-4 Taking action on material impacts, and approaches to managing risks: Actions taken on material workforce IROs — training programmes, wage reviews, H&S improvement plans.
S1-5 Targets related to managing material negative impacts: Workforce targets — diversity targets, pay gap reduction targets, H&S improvement targets.
S1-6 to S1-9 Workforce characteristics: Headcount by employment type; non-employee workers; significant operational changes affecting workforce.
S1-10 to S1-12 Working conditions: Adequate wages disclosure; social protection coverage; gender pay gap.
S1-13 Training and skills development: Average training hours; skills development programmes.
S1-14 Health and safety: TRIR, fatalities, work-related illness rates.
S1-15 Work-life balance: Parental leave take-up; flexible working arrangements.
S1-16 Remuneration: CEO pay ratio; annual total compensation ratio.
S1-17 Incidents and complaints: Discrimination incidents; H&S incidents; grievance outcomes.
The biggest ESRS S1 data gaps to fix now
Non-employee worker tracking (S1-8): Most HRIS systems track only direct employees. Agency workers, independent contractors, and self-employed workers performing work for the company must also be counted. Build a non-employee worker register immediately — this takes 3–6 months to establish reliably.
Gender pay gap calculation (S1-12): The unadjusted gender pay gap — average male remuneration vs average female remuneration as a percentage — must be disclosed. Most companies have never published this figure. Run the calculation from payroll data before disclosing — legal review recommended in some jurisdictions.
CEO pay ratio (S1-16): Ratio of CEO total annual compensation to median employee total annual compensation. Requires both board remuneration data and a median employee compensation calculation. Define your methodology clearly — inclusion of part-time workers, international employees, and bonus structures all affect the ratio.
Health and safety for contractors (S1-14): Injury rate metrics for supervised contractors are frequently missing. Establish contractor H&S incident reporting through your contractor management system.
ESRS S1 and the EU Pay Transparency Directive
The EU Pay Transparency Directive (effective June 2026 for member state transposition) requires employers with 100+ employees to report gender pay gaps and provide pay transparency to employees and job applicants. The pay gap reporting requirements overlap significantly with ESRS S1-12.
Key alignment: both require the unadjusted gender pay gap by category of worker; both require a remediation plan where the gap exceeds 5%; both apply to large employers.
For CSRD companies: building ESRS S1-12 pay gap infrastructure now satisfies both CSRD and Pay Transparency Directive requirements. Collect once, report to both regimes. The methodology must be consistent — document your calculation approach clearly before the Directive's enforcement begins.
Frequently asked questions
Does ESRS S1 cover contractors and agency workers?
Yes — ESRS S1 covers non-employee workers including agency workers, independent contractors, and self-employed persons who work under the organisation's supervision or at its direction. S1-8 requires headcount of non-employees; S1-14 requires H&S metrics for supervised workers.
Is the gender pay gap disclosure legally required under CSRD?
Yes — ESRS S1-12 mandates gender pay gap disclosure for all CSRD companies where workforce is material. Additionally, the EU Pay Transparency Directive (effective 2026) creates a separate mandatory pay gap reporting obligation for employers with 100+ employees.
What HRIS systems support ESRS S1 data extraction?
Most major HRIS platforms (Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM, BambooHR) can be configured to extract ESRS S1 metrics. The challenge is not system capability but data completeness — non-employee workers, contractor H&S records, and training hours for all worker types are frequently missing from standard HRIS configurations.
How does the Amended ESRS affect S1 for Wave 2 companies?
The Amended ESRS (December 2025) reduced mandatory S1 datapoints — primarily streamlining non-employee worker breakdowns and removing some granular working conditions sub-disclosures. Wave 2 companies should work from the Amended ESRS text. The core S1 metrics (headcount, H&S rates, pay gap, training hours, CEO ratio) remain mandatory.