Advice for negotiating a fair salary
Since gender pay gap reporting began in 2017, the median gender pay gap across all reporting finance and insurance firms has not improved. With this lack of progress at corporate level, I want to share with women advice for negotiating their salary, which can feel like a precarious balancing act of wanting to get the pay and opportunities deserved, without rocking the apple cart.
It all starts with knowing your worth. You should research salary ranges for your position in your industry and location. Websites like Glassdoor, PayScale, and LinkedIn Salary can provide valuable insights into what others in similar roles are earning, and moreover recruiters and industry peers will validate your research.
Women's networks provide a supportive environment where women can share their experiences, concerns, and challenges related to pay disparity. Being part of a network can help women feel empowered to collectively influence organisational policies and practices related to pay equity through advocacy efforts, lobbying, and collaboration with key stakeholders, including HR departments, management, and leadership teams.
The importance of male allyship is very helpful here and, on the basis of improving the fairness and equity within the business, don’t hide from asking male allies for their views and insight on salary structures. Not everyone will be comfortable discussing their salaries and respecting privacy and boundaries is essential if you are not be seen as a trouble maker.
There is a misnomer that discreetly gathering information about salaries within your organisation is breaching your employment contract. If there is a ‘pay secrecy’ clause in your contract, an employer cannot enforce the clause if an employee was discussing their pay for the purpose of finding out whether they were being paid differently to a colleague on the grounds of discrimination.
In building your negotiation position you need to consider your performance and achievements within the organisation and ensure you are not shy in highlighting how you have been instrumental in meeting the business objectives of your company . Advocating yourself doesn’t come naturally to many but it is critical to know how to demonstrate your value. I encourage people to ensure they consistently record their achievements, and then it is a matter of practising talking of these performance highlights.
Both tone of voice and how you frame your business case matter, and you need to see a pay review as a proposal rather than request which is why research in advance and knowing your value and contribution are key. Instead of “I was thinking of an 8% pay rise” be confident enough in your business case to say, “my proposal is 8% and this is why.”
My view is that you should look to discuss your pay when there is a change in your responsibilities, or when you have completed a successful project rather than holding until appraisal time when the decision of what pay review is being awarded has often already been made.
Obviously, the best outcome is an immediate agreement to the pay rise you hoped for (or even more!). However, you need to know how you will respond if your request is rejected.
Staying positive and focused on your contribution to success of the business is going to give you more scope to revisit this than ultimatums. Ask what you can to do to achieve the pay you are aiming for. You may be able to cement this conversation into an agreed pay review at a certain point, which you should get confirmed in writing.
More enlightened firms have policies related to pay equity or salary transparency and may have established processes for addressing concerns about pay disparities or mechanisms for salary benchmarking, yet this shouldn’t change your desire to know your own worth. If nothing more, this is essential when pursuing promotions or if you decide to interview with other firms.
Approaching discussions about salary (and particularly when you know there are disparities ) requires sensitivity, tact, and consideration of company culture and norms. By taking proactive steps to gather information and initiate constructive conversations, women can advocate for fair and equitable compensation within their organisations which is their right under the Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination in pay and conditions based on gender.
Pete Gwilliam is a recruitment expert and owner of Virtus Search
