Smart Woman Online

Earn What You’re Worth

Speak Up For More Pay

April 29, 2008
By Elizabeth Heubeck
Image ©2008 jupiterimages Corporation

Among girlfriends, talk about salaries tends to be a lot like talk about sex. Most women will speak in generalities but few will divulge the down-and-dirty details. Unfortunately, far too many women also remain tightlipped on the topic around their employers, from whom they usually want more — money, not sex, thank you. As a result, countless women are earning less than they could.

In 1963, full-time working women earned an average of 59 cents to every dollar paid to men. The Equal Pay Act was passed that year. But as of 2005, the most recent date for which statistics were available, the pay gap remained wide, with women paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men doing the same job. While politicians may blame the gap on gender bias or to deliberate choices made by women, economic experts are beginning to suggest another reason for the divide: Lots of working women simply don’t ask for more money. And women who do try to negotiate a pay raise often don’t succeed.

Here’s a prime example. A friend recently told me she planned to ask her boss for a raise. She had prepared well, writing a revised job description for herself that included new, more demanding responsibilities and she listed salaries for comparable jobs that she had gleaned from reputable websites (www.salary.com is a good one). But the plan fell flat.

“I got promoted in title, but they kept my salary the same,” she said. When I asked how she felt about being turned down for a raise, she said, “I’m just dealing with it because it’s such a flexible job.”

Her attitude is not uncommon among women.

Carnegie Mellon University economics professor Linda Babcock, PhD, author of Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, has scrutinized the negotiating strategies — or lack thereof — of male and female professionals and gives us disturbing news.

In one study, she examined the starting salaries of male and female students graduating from Carnegie Mellon with master’s degrees. She found the male students’ starting salaries were on average 7.6 percent higher than the women’s.

Digging to find out why, Babcock explored the negotiating patterns of the male and female students. She learned that only 7 percent of the female students had asked for more money when offered a job; the remaining 93 percent accepted the offer they received, no demands made. In contrast, 57 percent of the men had asked for more money during the job-offer process. These findings came as a surprise, as all students preparing to graduate from Carnegie Mellon receive counseling from the school’s career services office, which stresses the importance of negotiating job offers.

But human resources experts aren’t shocked. “Men tend to feel that they left money on the negotiating table, whereas women are appreciative of the offer itself,” says Lauren Williams, managing partner at PrincetonOne, a global staffing firm based in Skillman, New Jersey.

“Women are totally afraid to rock the boat,” says financial adviser Mikelann Valterra, director of the Seattle-based Women’s Earning Institute and author of Why Women Earn Less: How to Make What You’re Really Worth.

But there are positive signs of change from the place that counts: the top. In the Wall Street Journal’s 2007 report Fifty Women to Watch, Mary Sammons, chair, president and CEO of Rite Aid Corp., said, “When you look at where women have gotten in the workplace and the pay inequities that still exist in a lot of industries, I think we have to take the bull by the horns and ask about that very directly in our companies.”

Maybe that’s easy for a CEO to say. What the rest of us can do is hold our bosses to their rhetoric.

Get the Salary You Deserve

Do your research. Use Internet tools such as www.salary.com so you know the market value for your existing position — or, better yet, the one you want. Industry magazines also do salary surveys and reports. Don’t stop there. Talk to colleagues and network with other professionals in your field, and don’t limit your discussions to women. “It’s pretty amazing, but a lot of people don’t do the research. You wouldn’t buy a car without knowing the Blue Book value,” says financial adviser Mikelann Valterra of the Women’s Earning Institute.

Know your “resentment number.” That, Valterra says, is the least amount of money you can accept. Take any less and you will resent doing the job, she warns.

Keep a log of your value-added contributions. If you’re going to request a raise, you have to prove you’ve earned it. Don’t think in terms of personal growth; think about what you’ve done for the company. “Ask yourself, ‘How have you saved the company money and time by your negotiating and re-engineering skills?’” says Sally Haver, senior vice president of business development for The Ayers Group, a division of Kelly Services, Inc. Make sure you’ve tracked these achievements and discuss them with your supervisor during the negotiating process.

Don’t allow the negotiating door to close. If the company cannot give you a raise immediately, request a review three or six months down the line and renegotiate then. Set specific goals with your supervisor. When you meet or exceed them you’ll be able to make a good case for a raise.

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