Recently, I was asked by a relatively young female engineer about how to ask for a pay rise and it got me thinking.
My first question was, “Why should she have to ask?“
It should only be necessary to ask for a pay rise if you felt you were being underpaid for what you do. If all salaries were transparent and everyone was being fairly paid then this would not be necessary. Hence we can assume that in this workplace:
- There is no transparency on salary
- There may be salary inequities based on gender
Hence trust must be low in this workplace. Trust is the currency for high performing workplaces.
Why should she have to behave like a man?
All the evidence suggests that women typically undervalue themselves (by as much as 20%) compared to men. So even if a women does ask for a pay rise – they are still likely to undervalue themselves and not get fairly paid.
The pay gap between men and women is very real. Men are much better at taking what they need and they push hard to be first in line – you only have to look at young children in school to see this.
If women do ask for a pay rise then they risk:
- Not asking for enough anyway because they will undervalue themselves
- Being considered ‘aggressive’ or ‘pushy’
- Putting themselves through a fair amount of anxiety in the process
What should women do? What can be done instead?
How about instead of asking for a pay rise, you said this to your manager,
“I’m worried that I’m being underpaid compared to my peers. Can you show me how my salary compares to others that do the same work as me?”
If you get told that salaries are confidential you can respond,
“Of course, I totally understand. I don’t want to see names, just how my salary compares with the others at my level.”
This seems to be a perfectly reasonable request. How will your business respond to this? Here are my bets:
- Manager will go to the human resources or people function and ask for the data
- HR will go into a flap when they realise that if they give you the data, it will show the gender gap and they will try to work out what to do about it
You can then ask your manager at each of your regular meetings how she/he is going about getting the data you requested. After a few months you may:
- Not get the data you have asked for
- Get a pay rise – possibly bigger than what you wanted, anyway
In this case you can assume that, yes, you were being underpaid. If your organisation is able to provide the data and it looked fair then you can be relieved to know that there is pay equity in your firm and you can avoid the anxiety of asking for a pay rise.
After all, why should salaries in your firm reflect your ability to bargain for higher pay – as opposed to the value that you add to your company?
