The team at Credos share their views on why they believe women continue to be underpaid and offer some tips for HR on how to cater for the “negotiation differential” between the sexes.
Fact: Women continue to be underpaid, undervalued and under represented in the upper echelons of companies. Linda Babcock and Sarah Laschever’s book ‘Women Don’t Ask: Negotiating the Gender Divide’ suggests that this may be due to a great extent to what Credos regard as the “negotiation differential” between men and women. This refers to the differences between the sexes in how they tackle a particular negotiation situation.
But what are these differences? Why do they exist? What is their organisational impact and how can HR cater for them?
So why the difference?
Drawing on the Socialisation Theory, we can explain these marked differences and as such begin to deal with them.
By focusing on the difference between how boys and girls are raised, we see that boys learn how to be aggressive, how to deal with conflict and competition and how to be ‘leaders’. In contrast girls learn how to be ‘nice’, how to avoid conflicts, how to build and preserve relationships, and how to be fair to all.
Furthermore, men seek hierarchical structures while women prefer those which are flatter and promote communication, equality and friendship. These qualities and predispositions are hardly assets in the typical business negotiation scenario and may ultimately hinder the female executive’s clamber up the career ladder.
The irony and the impact
A woman may be excellent in a tough negotiation on behalf of her employee/client, but ironically far less adept when it comes to negotiating for herself. Research cited in Linda Babcock and Sarah Laschever’s book, ‘Women Don’t Ask’, showed that male college graduates were offered salaries that were $4,000 higher than the women — just because they asked for more!
As a consequence of not asking, women may not realise their full potential. Managers, even those who cater for their employees needs, may give women less opportunity and responsibility then they could or should simply because they haven’t been asked. The manager may assume that the female employee is happy with their lot as they haven’t said otherwise.
In addition, female employees may see equally or even less-qualified colleagues moving ahead of them. These scenarios will inevitably cause demotivated employees at best, and may result in poor self esteem and feelings of being undervalued.
The implications from an HR perspective are obvious and disastrous – underperformance, high staff turnover and loss of talent.
Unsurprisingly, when female employees get a better offer they take it, rather then using it as an opportunity to negotiate.
Employers need to acknowledge and confront the negotiation differential and recognise that women may be “backward in coming forward”. Below are some suggestions on what can be done.
Tips for business leaders and HR on how to cater for the “negotiation differential”
- Watch for bias: If you’re a manager, watch for unintended bias in your promotion and hiring practices. Recognise that men and women ask in different ways and tune your ear accordingly. A difference in asking does not reflect a difference in motivation.
- Be self-aware: Our perception and assessment of others will be affected by stereotypes and pre-conceived ideas. It is important to remain aware of when and how these operate in order to prevent their influence.
- Focus on performance: Opportunity and reward should be given on the basis of performance and merit rather than request.
- Training: Provide negotiation skills’ training that is gender sensitive and appropriate.
- Coaching: Coaching is a good way to reinforce newly learnt negotiation skills and styles.
- Managers: Through formal and informal interaction with staff, managers are in a position to highlight that the world is a negotiable place and encourage staff to ask for what they want and need both personally and professionally. This will reinforce that it is ok to ask.
- Mentors: Mentors, particularly women who are themselves successful negotiators, can also provide negotiation guidance and support and serve as valuable role-models.
- Take stock: Investigate the status of internal negotiation in your company. This can either be done through: a retrospective examination of promotion, turnover and policy; commissioning formal research; or through in-house initiatives such as HR-run focus groups or iquestionnaires.
- Be conscious: The negotiation differential is often not obvious because it reflects patterns of socialisation that are typically not questioned. Use performance reviews, exit interviews and informal interactions to monitor the effects of the negotiation differential on an ongoing basis.
- Value difference: Appreciate that although different, both male and female negotiation styles are equally valuable. Different scenarios will require different approaches, so have a diverse resource pool and know when to use the right negotiator.
2 Responses
Sugar and spice and all things nice – what tosh!
If we use the male/female population ratio as a base line women are under represented at the top but it’s not a “fact” that women are under paid/valued, it’s a matter of opinion which depends on how you measure value. Some women may be under paid/valued, others may be over paid/valued and some will be paid/valued what they are worth.
Men who feel under paid/valued may be less inclined to admit to this, making gender based statistics unreliable. Being under valued/paid is not a gender issue the problems that it causes apply to both sexes.
A gender based “Style” divide can only explain the male/female pay/value disparity if we generalise but there is a large over lap of “styles” between the sexes. “Style” is the reason why many hard working/well qualified/ high achieving men get left behind in the promotion stakes, so why should women be a special case? If we are going to take “style” into account we should do so for both sexes and not just women.
If we accept the generalisation about male / female “styles”, suggesting the difference is because of the way boys are raised is too simplistic. It’s the old nature v nurture argument. Research suggests that a willingness to take risks, which is often associated with leadership, is strongest in boys and that this is the result of nature not nuture. However, anyone with children will know that many boys don’t display so called “leadership” qualities and that many girls are competitive / assertive.
As for girls learning to be “nice” anyone who has seen “ladettes” at play or experienced bitchiness at work will know that this is a myth. I work in an organisation where 80% of the staff are female and as many, if not more, grievances are made against women managers as are made against male managers.
To say that women learn to be “fair to all” flies in the face of experience which shows that women are as inclined as men to put their own interests first. In a survey half the married women questioned admitted to having had an affair – is this fair on their husband? Try telling a father who is denied access to his children by his “ex” that “women are fair to all”.
More women than men may admit to being “less inclined to ask” but we should deal with the underlying issue and not make sweeping gender based assumptions. A man who is “slow in coming forward” should receive the same level of care as a woman with that style. The majority of employees won’t rise to the top of their organisations and the fact that the percentage of women reaching senior levels is lower doesn’t mean that men aren’t suffering from the problems identified in this article.
One size does not fit all and being fair requires us to offer both sexes the same level of consideration.
Negotiating with Men and Women
I thought there were some very good tips in this article in understanding different negotiating styles between men and women, particularly with regard to personal salary and employment issues.
However, if it is helpful, having run experiential negotation workshops for managers internationally for tens of thousands over many years, my own experience is that while *untrained* women may often be less likely to ask for more than many men in a negotiation, *trained* women do, and – in role plays at least – often win better deals for themselves more frequently than men, at least in part through the very qualities reported that women may more commonly possess.
I think the survey referred to in Linda Babcock and Sarah Laschever’s book ‘Women Don’t Ask: Negotiating the Gender Divide’ may possibly be somewhat partial, and actually diminishes the successes I observe many women achieving in practice.
Even so, thanks for the practical tips to avoid unfair discrimination – they serve as a useful warning and highlight several generic training needs, for those on *both* sides of the negotiation table!
Jeremy