8 ms·

I've hired plenty of people, and been in three times as many discussions of pay with everyone from the janitor to the CEO and I've never heard someone insinuate

I've hired plenty of people, and been in three times as many discussions of pay with everyone from the janitor to the CEO and I've never heard someone insinuate that we could pay less because the person is female, but I've heard people say "...and we get the bonus of having her be female to make our numbers look better..." before. Here's what I think a big driver is (you're going to have to walk down premise lane with me as I don't want to spend the time on citations ATM): Presuming that women are in general more agreeable than man in the workplace and that they don't fight as hard and as often for raises, I would expect an otherwise equal male counterpart that is more aggressive to have higher pay. Why? Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Every year when we did promotions we'd start out with a zero-sum raise pool. Let's say if everyone got exactly the same, they'd get 2%. But if I give Bob a raise of 4% I have to go 'take' that extra 2% from people or everyone. If I'm worried about Bob leaving, or he's asked for a raise and plead a good case, he's going to get it. If Alice or Charlie have been silent all year but have been doing an otherwise good job, they're going to get what's leftover- in general. There have been a number of cases where we idtenified someone silently kick major ass and threw money at them, but that I think it is because we had very conscientious managers that worked closely with their subordinates, unlike BigCo. I'm not even going to touch on all the other reasons that people have laid out as possible reasons why women tend to earn less. I think if you've got two people working well, doing the exact same job and producing the exact same outputs, they should be paid nearly equally, but we're humans and life is messy. Some people haggle better than others, some had a very low salary before that the new job used to baseline, etc. If you really want to maximize your salary at an given job, argue for every last penny coming in. All future raises (for the most part) will be based off that number and it will haunt you for your entire tenure at the company- most likely.

michaelt 9y ago
Every year when we did promotions we'd start out with a zero-sum raise pool. Well, there's your problem. If I'm an employee and I do some great work that brings the company an extra $X per annum, and I ask for a raise of $0.1X the company is welcome to take that out of the $X I made them. If the company decides to instead take the $0.1X from someplace else, that's their decision not mine - claiming raises are zero-sum is just bullshit to make people feel guilty about asking for a raise.
- bedhead 9y ago
  Well, it's also a financial reality...
  - michaelt 9y ago
    If my efforts have made my employer an extra $X per annum, the financial reality is the company has an extra $X per annum. We can debate how that $X should be divided between workers, executives, creditors, shareholders and reinvestment. But there's no "financial reality" that means workers' share has to be zero. Every organisation has rules and budgets and procedures, but they're made by people and if they don't work right they can be fixed by people. It's not like the CEO received the budget from God on stone tablets on a mountain 2000 years ago. If I wanted to work in some calcified bureaucracy where rules were more important than outcomes and worker performance was irrelevant, I wouldn't be working in the private sector!
    - err4nt 9y ago
      Ultimately money is finite - no matter how much you have or how it's allocated. What if there literally isn't any more money left to be given by the time they're done giving raises?
      - kthejoker2 9y ago
        You're missing their point entirely. If my efforts made the company an additional $10,000 per year above and beyond what they would have made, they can offer me a raise of up to $10,000 without affecting any one else's chances at bonuses or raises.
        manyxcxi 9y ago
        Not if your efforts were wiped out by a project that went sideways and lost 20K on another side of the company. It's also highly unlikely that your singular effort created 10K more profit. That 10K was likely the culmination of a number of people who had varying levels of participation in the effort. Unless you're working at a company that tracks your hours to every single possible project you're working on, there's often a huge blind spot as to where exactly your effort is going as it pertains to revenue. Unless your in professional services or some other type of billable position, then I actually agree with your notion to a degree... With regards to people in billable positions, I once workthink d for a company that did something I really thought was neat. At the end of every quarter they'd announce a profit sharing rate based off of whatever it was that defined the rate. Since we were all billable this rate was at $X per billable hour. So if you billed more, you participated in a greater share of the revenue. I frequently saw $10-20K quarterly bonuses based entirely off my effort. It was quite motivating. Because the profit sharing was the same rate for everyone and took in to account the entire company's financials, you were assured that your billable efforts were going to be rewarded on the same scale as the next person.
hashkb 9y ago
I think greasing the squeaky wheel is a bad executive decision. It sets precedent, and rewards political behavior above actual work output. If you have to ask for a raise, you either don't deserve it or management is broken.
- manyxcxi 9y ago
  You can ask for a raise in two ways (in my book) that are indicitave of someone who is in fact a high performer, or at least savvy. 1. You approach a manager with expanded responsibilities that would justify more pay. Or a detailed account of your undocumented responsibilities that justify more pay. Don't come at me asking for more money for the same job if you're not already (or plan on) doing more work than we agreed to. I went from Architect to Director this way. 2. You have another offer from another company and give your old company a chance to match. This could have ramifications that everyone goes around and around about. The general rule of thumb is not to do this, but if you believe in your current company, what you're doing them is informing them you're below market for YOU, and they've got an opportunity to fix that. I did this at one company and it worked fine, but I left a year later anyway. There's some stats that say a large portion of people who do this are gone within a year.
humanrebar 9y ago
> If Alice or Charlie have been silent all year but have been doing an otherwise good job, they're going to get what's leftover- in general. ...and Alice and Charlie just find another job in a few years because their raises haven't been keeping up with market rates. It's not necessarily the direct managers' fault unless corporate gives: * estimates of market rates * recommendations that an average employee gets an X% raise to track with market rate (or even stay ahead of it) * a big enough pile of money to compensate everyone in line with market rates * even more money to reward high achievers (and probably squeaky wheels, too) This seems like a tall order to most budget-makers, so instead wise employees change jobs every so often to make sure their salaries keep up with market rates.
- yorwba 9y ago
  I would expect someone who is less predisposed to negotiate for a higher salary to also switch jobs less frequently, even if they could get higher pay elsewhere. If you like your colleagues and the work you do, leaving the company for a raise seems more aggressive than first telling your manager that you are unhappy with your pay.
  - nrp 9y ago
    In addition to that, the person being less aggressive about asking for raises in their current job is going to start salary negotiations at their next workplace from a lower number. In aggregate, this is a major source of income inequality.
guitarbill 9y ago
> Presuming that women are in general more agreeable than man in the workplace and that they don't fight as hard and as often for raises, I would expect an otherwise equal male counterpart that is more aggressive to have higher pay. Why? Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If that were true, wouldn't the salaries start off the same and then diverge? Doesn't seem to quite match up with these unofficial numbers. Besides, at most $MegaCorp, isn't compensation reviewed periodically, and some kind of peer review is included? Which means that agreeableness is less of a factor, which means the process is working.
- belorn 9y ago
  I recall this programming teacher I knew with a civil engineer education. While looking for his dream job, he sent in applications for other work but demanded way above average pay while knowing that most would reject it. In the end one place did accept it which was a teacher position with the same pay as coworkers who had been in the place for 10 years. If there existed statistics for such strategy, I wonder if it would have a gender attribute to it.
- RHSeeger 9y ago
  > If that were true, wouldn't the salaries start off the same and then diverge? No, because starting salary is something that is negotiable, too. And you need to push back on the offer and ask for more if you want to make more. If you're not the type to push back, you start lower.
haburka 9y ago
I think it's also quite likely that women are discouraged from making cases for a raise because they have a harder time convincing male managers of their competence. I've seen many men who simply ignore a woman's plea about a problem, but then a man will reiterate it and then it's suddenly an issue. Imagine trying to get a raise from someone who ignores you and only listens to the men on your team.

michaelt 9y ago

Every year when we did promotions we'd start out with a zero-sum raise pool. Well, there's your problem. If I'm an employee and I do some great work that brings the company an extra $X per annum, and I ask for a raise of $0.1X the company is welcome to take that out of the $X I made them. If the company decides to instead take the $0.1X from someplace else, that's their decision not mine - claiming raises are zero-sum is just bullshit to make people feel guilty about asking for a raise.

bedhead 9y ago
Well, it's also a financial reality...
- michaelt 9y ago
  If my efforts have made my employer an extra $X per annum, the financial reality is the company has an extra $X per annum. We can debate how that $X should be divided between workers, executives, creditors, shareholders and reinvestment. But there's no "financial reality" that means workers' share has to be zero. Every organisation has rules and budgets and procedures, but they're made by people and if they don't work right they can be fixed by people. It's not like the CEO received the budget from God on stone tablets on a mountain 2000 years ago. If I wanted to work in some calcified bureaucracy where rules were more important than outcomes and worker performance was irrelevant, I wouldn't be working in the private sector!
  - err4nt 9y ago
    Ultimately money is finite - no matter how much you have or how it's allocated. What if there literally isn't any more money left to be given by the time they're done giving raises?
    - kthejoker2 9y ago
      You're missing their point entirely. If my efforts made the company an additional $10,000 per year above and beyond what they would have made, they can offer me a raise of up to $10,000 without affecting any one else's chances at bonuses or raises.
      - manyxcxi 9y ago
        Not if your efforts were wiped out by a project that went sideways and lost 20K on another side of the company. It's also highly unlikely that your singular effort created 10K more profit. That 10K was likely the culmination of a number of people who had varying levels of participation in the effort. Unless you're working at a company that tracks your hours to every single possible project you're working on, there's often a huge blind spot as to where exactly your effort is going as it pertains to revenue. Unless your in professional services or some other type of billable position, then I actually agree with your notion to a degree... With regards to people in billable positions, I once workthink d for a company that did something I really thought was neat. At the end of every quarter they'd announce a profit sharing rate based off of whatever it was that defined the rate. Since we were all billable this rate was at $X per billable hour. So if you billed more, you participated in a greater share of the revenue. I frequently saw $10-20K quarterly bonuses based entirely off my effort. It was quite motivating. Because the profit sharing was the same rate for everyone and took in to account the entire company's financials, you were assured that your billable efforts were going to be rewarded on the same scale as the next person.

hashkb 9y ago

I think greasing the squeaky wheel is a bad executive decision. It sets precedent, and rewards political behavior above actual work output. If you have to ask for a raise, you either don't deserve it or management is broken.

manyxcxi 9y ago
You can ask for a raise in two ways (in my book) that are indicitave of someone who is in fact a high performer, or at least savvy. 1. You approach a manager with expanded responsibilities that would justify more pay. Or a detailed account of your undocumented responsibilities that justify more pay. Don't come at me asking for more money for the same job if you're not already (or plan on) doing more work than we agreed to. I went from Architect to Director this way. 2. You have another offer from another company and give your old company a chance to match. This could have ramifications that everyone goes around and around about. The general rule of thumb is not to do this, but if you believe in your current company, what you're doing them is informing them you're below market for YOU, and they've got an opportunity to fix that. I did this at one company and it worked fine, but I left a year later anyway. There's some stats that say a large portion of people who do this are gone within a year.

humanrebar 9y ago

> If Alice or Charlie have been silent all year but have been doing an otherwise good job, they're going to get what's leftover- in general. ...and Alice and Charlie just find another job in a few years because their raises haven't been keeping up with market rates. It's not necessarily the direct managers' fault unless corporate gives: * estimates of market rates * recommendations that an average employee gets an X% raise to track with market rate (or even stay ahead of it) * a big enough pile of money to compensate everyone in line with market rates * even more money to reward high achievers (and probably squeaky wheels, too) This seems like a tall order to most budget-makers, so instead wise employees change jobs every so often to make sure their salaries keep up with market rates.

yorwba 9y ago
I would expect someone who is less predisposed to negotiate for a higher salary to also switch jobs less frequently, even if they could get higher pay elsewhere. If you like your colleagues and the work you do, leaving the company for a raise seems more aggressive than first telling your manager that you are unhappy with your pay.
- nrp 9y ago
  In addition to that, the person being less aggressive about asking for raises in their current job is going to start salary negotiations at their next workplace from a lower number. In aggregate, this is a major source of income inequality.

guitarbill 9y ago

> Presuming that women are in general more agreeable than man in the workplace and that they don't fight as hard and as often for raises, I would expect an otherwise equal male counterpart that is more aggressive to have higher pay. Why? Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If that were true, wouldn't the salaries start off the same and then diverge? Doesn't seem to quite match up with these unofficial numbers. Besides, at most $MegaCorp, isn't compensation reviewed periodically, and some kind of peer review is included? Which means that agreeableness is less of a factor, which means the process is working.

belorn 9y ago
I recall this programming teacher I knew with a civil engineer education. While looking for his dream job, he sent in applications for other work but demanded way above average pay while knowing that most would reject it. In the end one place did accept it which was a teacher position with the same pay as coworkers who had been in the place for 10 years. If there existed statistics for such strategy, I wonder if it would have a gender attribute to it.
RHSeeger 9y ago
> If that were true, wouldn't the salaries start off the same and then diverge? No, because starting salary is something that is negotiable, too. And you need to push back on the offer and ask for more if you want to make more. If you're not the type to push back, you start lower.

haburka 9y ago

I think it's also quite likely that women are discouraged from making cases for a raise because they have a harder time convincing male managers of their competence. I've seen many men who simply ignore a woman's plea about a problem, but then a man will reiterate it and then it's suddenly an issue. Imagine trying to get a raise from someone who ignores you and only listens to the men on your team.