Salary_Disparity

Assignment 3 –Critique - Babcock, L. and Laschever, S. (2003). Women don’t ask, in Women don’t ask: Negotiation and the gender divide (pp. 1-16). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press There have been great technological advances, improved manufacturing processes and greater efficiencies in the workplace since I first entered the workforce in 1975; however, there has always been one issue that has not changed much over the years; that is the disparity in salary between men and women. In the article “Women Don’t Ask” (Babcock and Laschever, 2003), a group of female graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University approached Dr. Babcock, who was a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, to lodge a complaint that their male counterparts in the university’s PhD program were teaching courses on their own, whereas the women were working only as teaching assistants. When Dr. Babcock presented the complaint to the dean, it was explained that the men simply came and asked to teach a course, whereas none of the women had asked. This prompted Dr. Babcock to study gender differences when it comes to pay, raises and promotions in the workplace. After conducting several research experiments, Babcock learned that the disparity in pay seemed correlated to how men and women negotiate and/or how men ask for more than women rather then discrimination. Based on Dr. Dr. Babcock’s research experiments, there are some helpful key points and negotiation tools that would be valuable to apply when negotiating salary and benefits in the future. A main point in all of the studies that Babcock presented in the article is that women tend to not initiate negotiations as often as men do and women tend to not to ask for things such as a higher salary once an offer is presented, which the studies have shown that those who fail to negotiate suffer in the long term. An example of one study that Babcock conducted that was eye-opening was the study where graduating master degree students who had received job offers were asked whether they accepted the initial salary offer or attempted to negotiate for a higher salary. The results were that starting salaries of the men were 7.6 percent, or almost $4,000 higher on average then women. In explaining the difference, it turned out that only 7 percent of the women had negotiated and 57 percent (eight times as many) of men had asked for more money. Although the amount may seem modest, the authors point out that that if a man and woman who were each 22 years old were offered a $25,000 salary for their first job, and one of them negotiates the amount up to $30,000, then assuming that each of them received a three percent raise each year until they reached the age of 60, the negotiator would make $361,171 more. I think negotiating entry-level job salaries has some limitations depending on the type of job one seeks and whether one is seeking employment in the government sector versus the private sector. Take the following as an example of the limitations of negotiating starting salaries in government industry jobs. I work in state government and when an entry-level job becomes available in my organization, the salary is set; and whether I am the manager responsible for the hiring, or someone else, we do not have the authority to offer a higher salary then the one that was posted. As a consequence, one of the biggest challenges that our organization faces is hiring and retaining highly trained and qualified staff. My organization frequently experiences high turnover of staff because we cannot keep pace with the pay of comparable jobs in the private sector. There have been many instances where applicants turned down job offers for entry-level positions in my organization when the applicant learned that the salary was non-negotiable. As a side note, in my experience men routinely turned down the job offers and women accepted job offers and rarely asked if the salary is negotiable. Conversely, jobs that are not entry level in my organization usually are posted with a salary range, anywhere between $2,00-$2,000 per month, depending on the job. This is good because it lets the applicant know the limitations of the pay that are negotiable and gives the hiring manager flexibility negotiating a fair salary. Another key point that the authors point out is that women tend to assume that by working hard and performing well that they will be rewarded fairly sooner or later. Women may take a more collaborative approach to problem solving then men where they are trying to find solutions that benefit both parties or try to align their own requests with shared goals. Since most entry-level salaries are fixed in my organization, an employee can negotiate pay raises during their annual reviews based on their performance. This is where the collaborating style approach could be beneficial for the women that tend to have this style of negotiating. Also, developing a negotiation plan could be helpful when negotiating a pay raise, which could include the following seven steps: Do research, make a complete list of accomplishments, ask around the organization about past raises, know your best alternative negotiating alternative, make a clear strong request, listen clearly to the bosses request and close the deal (Lewicki and Hiam, pp 285-287). In the past, I found it beneficial to ask during my annual performance review how I would qualify for a raise in the future. There are also other things that can be negotiated to improve moral and the quality of the job that would make life more pleasant such as negotiating flexible work schedules, training opportunities and tuition reimbursement, negotiate the type of different projects to work on, upgraded parking, lunchroom snacks and free coffee (Nishi, 2010). I think there are other factors that are attributed to the disparity in pay that were not mentioned such as longevity in the work force, education and experience; however, I thought this was an interesting article and on a scale of one to ten I would rate the article a ten. As a supervisor, I plan on making myself better aware of the impact of the different rates at which male and females ask for rewards and opportunities. I plan to listen to my staff’s requests more intently and implement is the use of skillful questioning techniques that I learned in class to better learn the needs and goals of others as well as utilizing questions in negotiations with our external customers. Bibliography Babcock, L. and Laschever, L. B. (2003). Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press. Hiam, R. J. and Alexander Hiam (2006). Mastering Business Negotiation: a Working Guide to Making Deals and Resolving Conflict. San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey-Bass, a John Wiley & Sons Imprint. Nishi, D. (2010, July 4). Negotiating for More. The Wall Street Journal .