Well, what a week last week was.
International Women’s Day saw organisations called out for the willingness to rush to celebrate the same female staff they there were proved as underpaying.
Needless to say, it’s time for a change.
Real change.
Now most companies are not going to suddenly rectify their misdeeds. Let’s be honest they do not care enough.
However, you can care enough about your career enough to stop accepting less.
There is a phrase that friends and I have its:
The GRATEFUL DEAD!
I see that this is what so many women in the world of work are suffering from. An attitude of gratitude that is misplaced.
Believe me, I am all for gratitude and being grateful and there are so many things to be grateful for. We have so many privileges living in the western world and in all honesty, we have the privilege of life itself. However, this is not the gratefulness that I am speaking about.
It is the gratefulness that keeps us accepting less and giving way too much.
I want us to readdress the balance in our own minds.
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day was “breaking the bias”
Here’s what they say about it:
“Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.
We can break the bias in our communities.
We can break the bias in our workplaces.
We can break the bias in our schools, colleges and universities.
Together, we can all break the bias – on International Women’s Day (IWD) and beyond.”
It is this individual responsibility that I want to address.
I believe that we as women have some biases that we need to break in our own minds in order to help usher in the changes that we want to see. Do not get me wrong, men have plenty to do to solve the patriarchist world that we live in. Plenty!
However, I would like to contend that we as women can often be the message bearers of that patriarchal way of living and thinking.
Ever read or seen The Handmaidens Tale?
Who is that supporting the archaic way of treating women? Women.
With my whole chest, I support women, with my whole chest I want to see an end to patriarchy and with my whole chest, I want women across the world to see that they have power. And that power is magnified when we change our own thinking and work together.
If you have been following me on social media, you will know that I have been exceptionally vocal about some of the issues and biases that we as women need to challenge… within our own female community.
So dear reader I’m going to highlight some of them.
Women Bully Women
This is one of my biggest bugbears at present. I tend to work with women in leadership and emerging leadership and my goodness one of the biggest problems that they are facing (and not just them) is a female boss or member of staff who is making their life hell.
We have been pitched against each other and sadly some women have gone with that competition hook, line and sinker.
They want to be the only one in the room or worst still they are so insecure that they need to destroy another woman who is talented to feel good about themselves.
This isn’t how we work together. This is not how we break biases. What it is, is women breaking other women.
The mental and emotional toll of experiencing this is turning into a physical toll. Women are being signed off from work because the bullying that they are experiencing is making them sick.
This insecurity, this lack of self-awareness and need to destroy another woman to feel powerful is rife with toxicity.
There is work that we need to do on ourselves. The work of self-development, whether through counselling, coaching, or healing maybe all of them so that we do not become someone else’s persecutor.
This behaviour feeds into women feeling that they must hold back, stay and play small, whilst overworking and continuing to be underpaid.
If I had a pound for every woman I’ve met who is experiencing bullying or being marginalised by another woman at work I’d certainly have a jar full of money.
So many women contacted me about that post on LinkedIn – all resonating with the experience – because it was theirs.
If we want to break the bias – this is one that are going to have to do ourselves.
The Grateful Dead
This one is so frustrating. I see women who are talented, powerful, smart and great at what they do who are being grossly underpaid for their work. The grateful dead is exactly why. Let me give you some examples so that you understand where I am coming from.
- I’ve grown up in this company, they are like family.
- If I work hard, they will recognise me for my work and compensate for it.
- I’ll take on this extra role and prove myself and then ask for more money.
- It’s not really about the money I just want to do a good job.
- Well, they took a chance on me so I can’t really push
- I know that I am changing industry so I will take a pay cut to make this move.
- Well, I should be grateful as I work for a really big company.
Every one of these gets my goat. The downplaying is unbelievable and worst of all most of their male counterparts do not behave like this.
So let me tackle each one.
I’ve grown up in this company, they are like family.
They are not your family; they are your work colleagues and if tomorrow they felt that you needed to get gone then they would sack you without a bat of an eyelid.
Your loyalty is misplaced, because your relationship is, really, transactional. They get your skills, talents and experience and you get paid for sharing it. That is it.
I know that sounds quite cold, but regardless of all of the perks, when you strip it back down to its bare bones that is exactly what your relationship is. Your need to be loyal, benefits them, because, if we are honest, they are not paying you the rate that they should and maybe not giving you the title you deserve.
What keeps them doing that is your misplaced loyalty because you’ve made it clear to them that you aren’t going anywhere and you’re not unhappy enough with your earnings to move.
In return, they don’t feel under any pressure or threat that you are a flight risk and in turn, don’t feel the need to improve your comp plan.
If I work hard, they will recognise me for my work and compensate for it.
Ok, if that was the case then you would be on the money you should be on with the title and team that you deserve – are you?
You work hard, too hard and they love that you do. Your boss is dining out on your genius every management meeting and is happy to keep you where you are because it works for her/him.
When PDP time comes there is always a reason why you can’t be promoted or get that pay rise or get that extra person in your team.
Let’s be honest you have shown them every day since you got there that you can take on all the work they give you, without complaint. You work late, and early and your lunchtime trying to get it all done. This is because you have a misguided understanding of what it takes to progress.
Don’t get me wrong I am not dissing working hard, what I am saying is that you need to work smart. Because Chad is having lunch with his next hopeful reporting manager and sharing his work (your work) with company influencers. You are not!
I’ll take on this extra role and prove myself and then ask for more money.
I cannot lie, when one of my clients said this to me, I gave the most side-eyes of side-eyes. I think I must have looked at her like she had gone raving mad…. she knew what I was thinking.
You see, you keep taking on extra roles and responsibilities, you are even taking on the role of the guy who got paid more than you who was shit at his job and they pushed out. Where did his salary go? Because you surely didn’t get it.
Yet you now want to take all of this on and prove yourself for how many months before you ask for another penny? How does that make sense?
You see the reason why they gave you the extra responsibility was because you have already proved your worth.
The problem is that you don’t own your worth and so because you don’t… they don’t have to.
Chad’s salary got subsumed into the business and helped to show a healthy profit (which your manager got in a bonus by the way) and you didn’t get much… if you did it was most probably the flat rate that everyone else got.
Your career and your value are your responsibility, you’ve proved yourself. Ask for what you deserve… before you take on anything else.
It’s not really about the money I just want to do a good job.
When I hear this one, I know where we are going. The issue is the money. The issue is that you don’t want to ask for it and you are afraid of what you think they will think of you because you asked for it.
The money should reflect the good job that you do. No one should be taking your talents and skills and not paying you accordingly. If it’s not about the money, then you need to take a good hard look in the mirror.
Now before you shout me down and tell me that there are more things to life than money – I will tell you that you are absolutely right. But when we are looking at our careers and exchanging our expertise for money then it is about the money.
Why should you deliver greatness and get paid peanuts for it especially when other people do less than you and get paid more?
One of the reasons women struggle is because of the lack of financial independence that they have and/or the lower pay that they receive which limits their options.
Why should your options be limited?
Whilst you can do great work that is impactful for communities, clients and the organisation getting paid adequately enables you to have greater impact in your own life, your family and your community.
We need to break our own money biases and recognise the choices and power that we have when we have more.
If you have children with more money you can afford to help them gain an asset by helping them to buy a house. You might choose to help them with a tutor or let them learn a musical instrument to broaden their life experience.
Money can enable you to help your parents or siblings, get that much-needed home of your own, see the world and so much more. Money can also help you to create a better future for health, your happiness and your standards of living.
In our current world, it is money that makes the world go round and therefore by default it is about the money.
Well, they took a chance on me so I can’t really push
This one upsets my spirit. It is the level of surrender that does it. “My life is theirs because they took a chance on me – no it is not.
If you only could see the reason they took that chance.
It’s because you demonstrated something that they liked and something that they wanted. Let’s be honest, how long ago did they take that chance? How many times have you proved yourself since?
They cannot ride on that chance forever, especially when you have been proving yourself continually. This thinking is holding you back from asking for what you deserve.
If I was to probe, will I find that you overhauled a system or process and made it better. Have you increased sales, improved performance, accessed new markets? Yeah, I am sure that you have and yet still you have left yourself at 2015 rates because they took a chance on you.
Lady, I want you to know that that chance paid off! Yes, it did. They have been dining out on your impact and they love it, but you are keeping yourself small. You keep downplaying your impact because you are too damn grateful.
How many late nights have you worked? How much impact have you had? Yet still you won’t ask for what your soul tells you, you deserve. It’s a transactional relationship and as such you deserve to get what you should be paid.
I know that I am changing industry so I will take a pay cut to make this move.
Nope, nopety, nope. Let me tell you, once you take that pay cut to move it is highly likely that you will never catch up on your salary.
There will be excuse after excuse as to why they can’t give you a big fat pay rise to put you back to where you should be. They will continue to take your gold and make the most of it but keep you on that lower salary.
Remember even if they do increase your pay, you will most probably still be behind because your increase will be based on that lower amount.
You watch as new hires get double your salary and yet still, they can’t increase yours. You believed that to make a move you have to drop your pants and everything else in order to get into the industry.
This falls back to your negotiation skills. You have to remind them that you have transferable skills, experience in other markets and industries that you can bring into this one and make a new innovative impact, that they have not had before.
When you value you, you’ll rethink how you view yourself and “sell” you as a prospect to a new company in a new industry.
Even if you take that initial drop, it’s crucial that you build into your comp plan the increase after probation.
Well, I should be grateful as I work for a really big company.
This one makes me beg the question – who’s voice is this? Yours or someone else’s?
There is a fallacy about big companies.
The fallacy is that working for a big company makes you valuable. Working for a big company gives you kudos, working for a big company means that you’ve hit the big time, working for a big company means that you have job security, working for a big company equals higher pay, working for a big company is great.
None of this is completely true. There are many elements and ifs and buts about all of this.
One of the things that people don’t talk about is how working for a big company is like on the ground. How your time can be completely hijacked by the company.
Being big can also have its issues. Don’t think that they won’t squeeze everything out of you for their money’s worth, they will.
Working for a big company isn’t a bad thing and being grateful isn’t a bad thing, but when you place all of your hopes, ambition and worth in that company, that is when we start getting into problems.
As I have said before, it doesn’t take much for a change in company policy, a new leader or change management process to put you out of your job. There are millions of companies out there and this is not the only one. You don’t have to wed yourself to a company just because it’s big.
Your career can segue at any time you chose. My hope for you is that you don’t leave yourself
I want to be clear. Even in every one of these areas, there is still the company’s responsibility to pay you fairly. There is a change in behaviour, attitude and pay scales that needs to be incorporated in order for women to be paid fairly. However, we can no longer afford to wait for change, we need to be the change.
That means advocating for ourselves.
Changing jobs if we are not being valued.
Asking for our value
Ensuring that our subordinate women colleagues get the pay that they deserve
Challenging the lower wages and advocating for others
Building an effective business case for our progression
Letting go of being The Grateful Dead
Calling out women who are bullying other women and challenging bad behaviour
Change is possible but we are the change that we want to see in this world.
I also know that change is not easy. It’s political with a capital and small p, it’s hard work and at times advocating for change can be detrimental to us.
However, change is necessary, and change starts with you and me.
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