Essential Career Advice for Women – Equal Pay!

Can women get paid on an equal footing with men? Can you get what you’re worth? Well, you can blooming well try!

Women get paid less than men. There are a myriad of reasons why that is so, some of which are outwith your control as an individual. Focus on changing that which is within your control.

There are gender differences in pay levels. Fact. You are not being a hysterical woman if you point that out.

You are not being rude by asking what the salary levels are in your organisation and how they are determined (although a reluctance to tell you is giving you a lot of information!)

Being the longest serving post holder does not automatically deserve more pay. Career breaks need not necessarily mean less pay. Be clear about what you have gained during that break, what you bring back into the organisation. Don’t assume that you deserve lower pay.

Not knowing your worth may mean you get paid less. If an employer can get you on the cheap they will. And if an employer gets you on the cheap they will, albeit subtly, value you less.

If you are giving of yourself cheaply, you may value yourself less.

If you value yourself less you won’t ask for more pay.

Know your worth.

Know the worth of the job you do.

Know the industry norm for the job you do.

Know what your organisation pays others.

Know you have the right to ask for your worth!

You owe it to yourself (and all the women coming after you) to be paid equally with men. Go for it!

P.S. Speak Up! is a brand new course devised by me and launching in November. If this post has been useful to you, take a look at the course – you’ll love it!

If Women Ruled the World

If women ruled the world….

I ask this question on my Women Ahead course (designed to boost women’s confidence to move ahead at work) in order to illustrate how the world of work as we know it, could be different. It’s not about having a go at men but about thinking from a different perspective, expanding our horizons of what could be, and maybe understanding better why things are as they are.

Think about it for a minute. The world of work as we know it now evolved during the Industrial Revolution, when labour moved largely off the land into cities and a different type of employment. Men went to work and systems of working emerged dependent largely on the fact that there were women at home to literally keep the  home fires burning.

Women had little or no part in how work was organised.

Imagine though if we had. Allow yourself to imagine if the working world as we know it had been designed solely for women – all women. Imagine that men were at home, (apart from the poor ones who would be working very hard but for far less money than us) and imagine that actually most of the time it wasn’t even thought appropriate to educate them as, well, they were just going to marry successful working women and keep home. It would be a waste of investment. And as for getting the vote….what nonsense.

I have no doubt that different systems would have evolved. We might have a totally different working day, not 9-5 at all. We would certainly have  very sophisticated maternity and child care arrangements because we would have been very important people. Systems would have evolved to support us.  And they would be considered normal. School hours may have been designed differently. Just try and imagine. How many things would be different?

And I am also sure that as time went on and men began to get involved as society evolved they would find themselves at a disadvantage in the systems we had designed. But they would do their best because it was the way of the world and if they wanted to get on they would have to adapt. They would have to suppress some of their instinctive behaviour and behave like us, the dominant culture. We would have set the standards for behaviour in the world of work.

And as time went on, we women wouldn’t really have an incentive to change because actually it works quite well for us and anyway, some men can cope very well. Why look, there is that well known financier guy who is one of the 12.5% of men who has made it to the board in that company listed in the FTSE 100. So it’s fine, isn’t it? Obviously we’d like to see more men on boards but we can’t legislate for changing societal attitudes. We’ll ‘nudge’ them. We’ll encourage them, yes, that’ll do something.

Sometimes we need legislation to change society’s attitudes. If we hadn’t done that in the past, women wouldn’t be voting, children would still be working, and homosexuals would still be persecuted.

Why Can’t Women Show Emotion at Work?

A few weeks ago I was pleased to be listening to Sam Roddick speak at a women’s conference. She was brilliant. The nub of her speech was that she ran her business in her own way, regardless of disapproval from others or traditional business models. And if that meant she showed emotion when she was upset, that was fine. She was upset so she showed it.

“Men are allowed to get angry at work; that’s seen as acceptable. I get upset I cry. That’s not deemed acceptable. I say deal with it, or get therapy!”

She wasn’t talking about bursting into tears at inconsequential slights, not at all. She’s a very strong woman. She was talking about putting passion into what you do with your life and caring.

However, her way is not the accepted way of running a business. In the UK, business norms have been set by men. Male norms prevail and are rewarded, female behaviour is derided as ‘soft’ and not as effective.  Shows of emotion that aren’t anger are seen as a weakness. Many pioneer women in business had to behave like men and suppress their feminine side. Often this can penalise sensitive men as much as women. It’s bad enough for a woman to show her emotions; imagine what it’s like for a man in a macho world!

Diversity and Equality

We’ve moved on a lot and many new businesses have really good true equality policies which work in theory and practice (I’m thinking of Pepsico, for example, where difference is valued and equality doesn’t mean ‘allowing’ women to behave like men). The evidence is that where business values all its employees and has significant numbers of women in senior roles, the bottom line is better!

Yet I still find myself in coaching conversations with senior women struggling to survive in a macho culture which constantly undermines their contribution. Usually these women are working in long established business areas like banking, finance, and local government. Newer businesses, while not exempt, tend not to have a long history of  ‘We always do it this way; it’s worked up until now. Don’t rock the boat’

Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man?

Because she’s a woman! And women bring other equally valid and valuable qualities to the workplace. And a workplace which doesn’t acknowledge and nurture that is missing out an a huge valuable resource! Eventually those senior women will find places where all they bring to work is valued and respected, where they don’t have to struggle to fit a male model of desirable manager or executive.

Share Your Story

I would love to hear from you if you have had experience of this. I’d love to know if it’s not an issue in your workplace, and if it is. I’d love to know how you think we can combat it, who your best supporters were, who inspires you, and any advice you’d care to share! (You can remain anonymous if you wish, if speaking out feels too risky).

Why Do Female Doctors Earn Less?

Lying in bed reading the newspapers is my indulgent Sunday morning activity although often the stories make me splutter into my tea.

One such was this report on female doctors hitting a glass ceiling in the UK -this link will take you to the story.

Why?

Splutter over, I mused on what makes it so, particularly the comment that ‘women do not put themselves forward’. There are lots of obvious reasons like child care etc but actually, although most people now would not dispute that women are equally as capable as men, the world of working practices has not caught up.

Change The Way We Work

Work and working practices have been designed by men and suit men. Historically it’s how it happened. Women and ethnic minorities were not around when the basic principles were established. But if we were to design many of our old established professions to suit BOTH genders (not just make them female friendly which sounds somewhat patronising, but really think about a system that is open to everyone in our society), I believe the equality issue would fade. Modern companies that have taken this more inclusive route have found that both women AND men benefit.

What Do You Think?

Do you think your profession/job/career would be significantly different if both genders had devised the working remit? Please do share your thoughts with us.