Love Is Not Enough: A Smart Woman’s Guide to Money. Merryn Webb Somerset
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This kind of thing matters. Imagine that a man and a woman are both offered a job at the same time at the same place. The offer includes a starting salary of £25,000. The woman takes it. The man negotiates it up to £28,000. Thereafter they both get 5% pay rises every year over the next 30 years or so. How much more do you think he will earn over his career than she does?
The answer is a shocking £285,000. And that’s a minimum number: if the woman accepts the 5% every year but the man pushes it up a little more at each annual review (don’t forget men initiate negotiations four times more often than women) he will end up with even more. A quarter of a million pounds is many times more than the average person’s net worth will ever be but women throw that kind of money away every day simply by being too embarrassed, too shy and, let’s face it, too foolish to ask to be paid what they are worth. So next time you think that you’re lucky to have your job remember that, if you aren’t paid the market rate, you aren’t nearly as lucky as the employer who has managed to get you to do the same work as the man at the next desk for less money.
All this means that you must have your wits about you in the workplace. There are many ways to make yourself better off – and we’ll be looking at many of them later in the book – but the simplest way to get richer in a hurry is to make sure you are getting paid what you are really worth. Once you’ve done that you can start working to turn that stream of income into long-term wealth. But first you have to ask for more money and the sooner you do it the better.
Here’s how to go about it.
Eleven ways to get paid what you are really worth
1 Get the knowledge. Find out how much other people in your line of work get paid. When I started in journalism I made a point of asking a friend senior to me in the business how much she earned and how much she thought I should earn. Now she always tells me everything she knows about pay standards in our industry and I tell her. Also visit recruitment websites or call a recruitment consultant. If you feel able to ask colleagues what they make go ahead (a few drinks might help here). Next visit www.paywizard.co.uk (it doesn’t give much detail but it will help you to see the range of pay on offer for jobs similar to yours). Finally, get your personnel department to show you the firm’s pay data. You can’t ask to see what individuals are paid but you can see a breakdown of pay by sex, which might help your case a little. Knowledge is power – no one can argue with you if you have the right facts to hand and you have a good case.
2 Do your own PR. Women aren’t programmed to shout about their achievements in the same way that men are but the more you let people know both that you exist and how well you are doing the more they will remember you. Perhaps you can keep your boss aware of your progress on a weekly basis. I don’t mean going into their office at the same time every Friday to bore them with the details of how special you are, I just mean that you should make sure that every week they are copied in on an email that makes you look good or that you regularly mention any positive feedback from colleagues or customers. You also want to be sure that you aren’t overlooked. You need to speak up in meetings whenever you get the chance (even if you aren’t convinced your contribution will be an exceptionally good one – when did that ever stop a man?). When the time comes to ask for a rise collect evidence to show that you do your job adequately. It’s nice if you do your job particularly well but you only need to do it averagely to get paid the going rate for it. Also make a list of any achievements, especially if you can show that they have affected the firm’s bottom line (in a good way) and get together any comments or letters of praise or thanks from suppliers or clients. Then take them all in with you. Remember that a key part of doing well – of being promoted and of being paid more – is self-promotion. Don’t ever be too modest. When you were at school if you worked hard you automatically got As. But this isn’t school and there is no exam that tells people what you should be paid. You have to tell them yourself.
3 Be objective. Forget how much you feel you are worth. This isn’t about your self-esteem; it’s about an objective assessment of your market worth. And asking for more money isn’t rude. It’s perfectly normal.
4 Don’t wait too long. There’s no need to wait for an annual pay review. You can ask for more money at any time. The worst that can happen is that the answer will be no.
5 Begin as you mean to go on. When you start a job don’t accept the first salary offered. Immediately try to bump it up a bit. The higher a base you start from the faster your salary will rise.
6 Start high and expect to be argued down. Know what the minimum you will accept is before you start negotiating.
7 Never threaten to resign unless you really mean it. If you don’t get what you want and you then don’t resign your position will be permanently undermined.
8 Don’t assume no means no. Ask for another review in six months. Also consider asking for non-cash options – perhaps more training or more flexible hours, time off to study, or a day working at home. Ask if you can be sure of a pay rise if you hit particular targets; ask to have set objectives you will be judged against.
9 Ask on a Wednesday afternoon. A recent survey from Office Angels found that four out of five employers are at their most receptive to pay demands in the middle of the week and in the afternoon.
10 Use the law. If you really think you are paid less than a man for broadly similar work and none of the above has worked you will need to take it further via the legal system. Under the Equal Pay Act you can write to your employer asking for information to help to establish if you are getting equal pay and if not why not. Download a list of the questions you can ask from the EOC website on www.eoc.org.uk. If you remain convinced you are being discriminated against but your employer still refuses you a rise, write a letter of grievance to them. Wait 28 days for a reply. They should then set up a meeting to discuss the situation. You can take a union representative or colleague with you. If your grievance is not upheld you can and should then appeal against the decision. If this too doesn’t work you can, as a last resort, go to a tribunal. Get advice on it from the EOC and the independent Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (www.acas.org), which tries to settle claims. In 2002–3, 17,000 women took their employers to a tribunal. There is one final thing to say on pay and discrimination. Do not ever go to a tribunal or threaten your employer with a tribunal if you don’t have a good case but just hope you might get a cash payout. It isn’t good for any of us.
11 Never be afraid of being called a feminist. Too many people think that being ‘pushy’ in the office will end up with them being labelled a ‘feminist’. And too many people think there is something wrong with that. According to a poll commissioned by the women’s rights organization Womankind Worldwide in 2006, only 29% of UK women are happy to be called feminist these days. This is an outrage. If you agree with women having the vote, having equal rights in the workplace and at home, getting as much say over the family car as a husband, being free from domestic violence and rape and so on then you are a feminist. Anyone who says they are not should take a step back and remember that the world of opportunity they live in was created for them by the women who invented the word – and suffered for it. We do them a great disrespect to deny their label. I’d be horrified if anyone suggested that I was not a feminist.
Being worth more
So far we’ve just been looking at how to get paid what you are really worth. But you can also look at this the other way around: if you want to get paid more perhaps you should make yourself worth more. You are selling yourself in the labour market. Within that market there are a lot of ordinary people. They can all type, can all do basic administration, can all answer phones and so on – they can all do low-paid commodity-style jobs. So if you want to get paid more than them you have to have skills they don’t have. You can do this formally. It is generally accepted that the better educated you are the more you will get paid and in the case of professional qualifications that is absolutely true. As a doctor or a lawyer, an architect or a web designer the better your qualifications and the more of them you have the more likely you are to be able to find the best and the best-paid