How LEGO Is Getting Ready for 2026 (and What HR Must Copy)
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we sit down with Kent Frederiksen, Vice President and Head of Rewards at the LEGO Group, to unpack how one of the world’s most beloved brands is preparing for the EU’s 2026 pay transparency rules. Kent breaks down why this shift is far bigger than compliance and why it will fundamentally reshape how companies handle data, structure roles, build trust and communicate with employees.
He shares LEGO’s six-year journey with global equal pay analyses and explains why the hardest part isn’t legislation but the organisational mindset shift. Kent reveals the hidden challenges most companies underestimate, including the operational burden, the cultural implications and what it really means to “prove” pay equity in a legally defensible way.
Finally, he explores how pay transparency is forcing companies to move from secrecy to partnership, why trust is the real currency in this transition and what HR leaders should be doing right now to get ahead before regulations hit.
🎓 In this episode, Kent discusses:
How LEGO built six years of global equal pay scans
Why structure and job architecture suddenly matter again
The shift from company-owned pay data to employee-owned rights
Why EU pay transparency will transform HR far beyond compliance
Why trust and communication determine whether transparency works
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Chris Rainey 0:13
Ken, how you doing? My friend, all good. Thanks for having me. Nice to see you. Likewise. What Lego did you bring me?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 0:18
Well, I couldn't really bring any because I only had one suitcase.
Chris Rainey 0:22
So that's my excuse. How often do people ask you that question? Well, it actually
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 0:26
comes up a lot. And also, what's my favorite set always is technique and
Chris Rainey 0:32
cars, though? Well,
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 0:34
absolutely, 100% always will be Porsche. We do a vintage old one, like an old 911 either target version you can model and play it around. That's my favorite of all times I
Chris Rainey 0:46
went to really random. I went to McLaren's office in the UK, and they have a giant McLaren made out of Lego, yeah, in the in, in the front of the showroom, yeah. I was like, Oh my God. Have you seen it?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 1:02
Yes, I've seen a lot of these builds that we do that, that are typically built out of our clapno factory, where we have models. So they commissioned, oh yeah, it's, they're very specialized in doing that. They do all the big sizes we have just, I don't know if you've seen the Formula One collaboration we've done, no no, when we kicked off the, I think it was the Miami Formula One, yes, when the season was kicked off, we did a collab with f1 and it was kicked off with every single brand or car, yeah, starting it by driving their own LEGO brick built car, driving it a one to one build, but actually driving it, driving it around hours.
Chris Rainey 1:44
It's what we did, engineering feet that, yes, engineering team were like, what have you asked us to do?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 1:50
They've done it before. We did with the Bugatti as the very first one. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And then just escalated from there, amazing. Then we did this collab.
Chris Rainey 1:58
Love that. But what brings you here today? What brings you,
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 2:02
well, first of all, to visit a lot of the wonderful booths that I hear, the opportunities to see some of the tech that's available. And it's amazing. You know, the amount of companies that I hear that offer data in some shape, form or another is, like, mind boggling compared to a few just a few years ago, right? Yes, it's like, I go, I've never heard about that. I've never heard about that. And so there's a lot to explore here. Yeah, of course, to meet you and
Chris Rainey 2:28
amazing, yeah, and you're speaking talk us a little bit about the session. Are you going to
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 2:32
be so I think paid transparency, Eagle pay is on the radar for a lot of companies. It should have been for years, but some of the EU legislation coming in June 26 and for sure, also legislation in other countries, US, UK, Australia, is forcing us really to step up and into this.
Chris Rainey 2:51
So how is Lego preparing for the EU pay transparency requirements? Because it goes beyond compliance to trust, you need to strengthen your trust and reputation as well, right?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 3:04
Yeah, so the Legal Group is, and has been, and wants to be, one of the most reputable brands in the world. We deliver play experiences to kids, and that, with that comes a huge responsibility of trust, not just, you know, doing the right thing because you have to, but because we want to do it. And that's certainly also backed up and a direction from the owner family that clearly wants us to do the right thing. It's written into our mission, purpose, and especially our promises, which is our people promise, but also, you know, to the CSDR on planet, promise,
Chris Rainey 3:41
yeah, but walk us through it, though, because it's been a journey, right? Like for everyone listening, what if some some advice you could give to them? I know you're still on the journey, but what's some of the things that they really should be thinking about?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 3:53
Well, ideally, you've been thinking about this for a while now. If this is coming as a surprise, right now, I think there's work to be done, yeah, and I think you need to huddle around that and get going. There's a lot of there's a huge change journey on the coming, on the way, and one of them is that basically, depending on the company, your context, everything else, and your location, you're changing the whole ownership, from very company owned and like and privileged right of the data to all of a sudden that becoming an employee right and ownership, you can demand, you are being told, you can ask, etc. And also, unions will step into this more and more. So you know that there's ownership. I would like to see it as a partnership. Yes, who wants not to have equal pay that? Yeah, the concept of not having equal pay or doing the opposite on purpose is a bit why would you do that? That just seems morally wrong.
Chris Rainey 4:53
Yeah, what are the biggest challenges that company face data, having
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 4:58
your data in order struck. Sure, if you go by like 10 years or 510, 15 years back, there was a lot of talk about agility, you know, release the organization. You know, autonomous teams, no titles, no grading, structure, etc. Some companies went down that path, and I think they will find that that's actually not a good idea, because now you need to prove that you have structure, and you need to prove that one job can be matched to another job and how. So you need a process for that. You need structure all of a sudden, but hopefully also a structure that is agile still and not just filled with bureaucracy, because that's the worst you can do that impedes the business, the commercial success and momentum? Yeah, so. But structure data and, you know, building trust basically, because this is all about trust. If you have a group of employees or employees who don't trust what you're doing, you know, they will ask a lot of questions, and if you can't deliver that, that's just going to breed more distrust. Yeah. I say build trust is 100%
Chris Rainey 6:02
what you want to do. Yeah. How did you communicate that with for in Lego, in the LEGO Group,
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 6:08
well, the Legal Group, we've been doing Eagle pay scans, or equal pay for about this is our six year running that we're doing that on a global scale. So we've been communicating about that in articles online. We have a SharePoint where all employees can go in and see the data. You know, you've got statutory responsibilities in us. You've got it in UK and other countries as well. Europe is coming with the eup legislation, for sure, and there you need to deliver on that so. But the little group have been wanting to do this for years.
Chris Rainey 6:40
Yeah, and what's, what's been the feedback that you received?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 6:45
Well, I think so far, it's been very positively received. Everybody can access this. The question is, does everybody access it? Does everybody care? And I think right now, we're in a bit of a limbo between most companies needing to find out what is your path? Because you can go full on, open, either global, regional or very bespoke, depending on, you know, there's 27 EU countries, right? Yeah, there's EU legislation. Then there's each country that can decide to go above that. Ah, there's a lot going on in this basic complex. So you just saw, I think it was Netherlands slash Holland, how you want to call it, who actually went out and said, Listen, we're postponing that decision now, beyond the EU legislation date,
Chris Rainey 7:30
I have the power to do so well that let's see, debatable.
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 7:33
It's debatable the EU legislation is EU. You signed up for it, but there's a lot of things moving here, and you need to find your own path. And what
Chris Rainey 7:41
does this mean for the role for you in the team?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 7:44
Well, I think the role for, you know, my role is certainly to be on top of what's happening across other industries and other companies to make sure that we're not falling behind. I think fundamentally, you know, there's a saying that says Comparison is the thief of joy, yeah, but you know, and I like to live up to that, because we're the legal group, you know, we need to do what's right for the Legal Group. And I think we are. We have our promises and the family behind it, the Kirk family, who wants us to do the right thing, because the right thing is the right thing to do. Yeah, we have the reputation to live up to our customers expect it, and consumers especially, so we're doing the right thing, and the right thing is making sure that we have the data foundation we are communicating correctly. So we'll be stepping into this more and more as you know, the paid transparency journey, you know, gets closer to kickoff data.
Chris Rainey 8:37
Yeah, when you're talking to your colleagues in this space, what are the main issues or things that they're raising in those conversations?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 8:45
So reward colleagues or internally or externally, externally, externally. Certainly, have your data in order.
Chris Rainey 8:52
That's the number one message. Data,
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 8:54
Data, yeah, have your structure in order. What
Chris Rainey 8:57
is what specific data are we talking about?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 8:59
Well, first of all, you need to be able to build a process, and that needs to be a solid process that you can prove or communicate, and you
Chris Rainey 9:07
have to, right, yes, explain the importance of that. Because we had a call recently. You explained to me you have to be able to prove it. What do you mean by that?
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 9:14
Yes, because you can say, no, no, no, we have equal pay. Yeah, okay, but prove it. Oh, yeah. Look, this salary is matches that, yeah. But how do you get there? You actually need to prove that worst case, if you get dragged to court, the unions wants to challenge, want to challenge you. You might be in that situation, yeah. So you need to prove what is your policy. You have solid reward strategy. You have solid data that builds up, you know, is your GDPR. In order, all that has to be checked, and double checked and triple checked, yeah, and then, you know, you can go out and communicate, and I think that's the foundation for getting that in order, and whether or not you have 100 different payroll systems that so that that then go into, you know, I'm looking at Cornerstone. Here, success factors, all of the technology here as well. Of course, many different suppliers of that. But is the data correct and also making sure that you're efficient? You know, do you need to hire 50 people to already do this? Or have you got your infrastructure in order in the company as well? Maybe a good chance to revise that make sure that you're effective as well.
Chris Rainey 10:21
Yeah, on the employee side. Have you seen this now as a big like attract to help you attract talent, not to the organization? Is that
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 10:32
what I Yeah, some, some put a lot of value into this. Yeah, as we have that for sure, 100% and you already now need to adapt your processes. I would don't ask for what is your current salary? We don't do that a that's not long time ago.
Chris Rainey 10:49
No, it's true. So I was asked that in my very last interview a long time ago. I remember being asked that, yeah,
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 10:55
so you had to get rid of that. And you know, to a certain extent, people expect you not to do that, and maybe even raise the question you're not allowed to ask that.
Chris Rainey 11:03
Yeah, yeah. Parting advice for anyone listening, who's on the journey, what would be your pointing advice people that are on the journey right now? Yeah.
Kent Hviid Frederiksen 11:12
So if you're already on the journey, I think most people know what they're doing. You know, just the average company, you know, they have looked into this. I think it's important to have people working on this who know what they're doing, whether or not you know it doesn't matter whether on its reward or HR partner or finance, whoever does it, this is as long as they know what they're doing. Yeah. And then check in with other companies just to learn you know what's out there, whether or not it's a tech solution or it's just having the right process. Communication is key, you know, pull in stakeholders, people, partners, leaders, maybe even employees. Bring in unions as well. Yeah, this is not. This is about winning together. Yeah, there is no there's no lose. There's only losers here, if you don't do that, yeah, let's win together. So bring in people in the organization and ask them, What do you expect here? What do you want to see? What do you expect? Yeah, and then run some pilots.
Chris Rainey 12:06
Yeah, that's, I'm glad you added that part. Yes, 100% Yeah. Listen, I know you want to run. Appreciate you joining, and I'll see you soon. All right, okay, take care.
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Kent Frederiksen, Vice President and Head of Rewards at the LEGO Group.