Listen in for gaslighting so strong you can see it from space.
Managers being paid less than their ICs, punitive raise structures, cryptic pay bands…this week’s submitters are really going through it. But how do you start the compensation conversation when information is hard to come by? And what do you do when you’re told that there’s no way you’ll get a raise—just accept being paid less than your peers forever? This week, Sara and Jen tackle questions of pay inequity, when it’s time to fight, and when it might be time to move on.
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Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:00 I'm mad at companies because I feel like they could make all of this a lot easier.
Jen Dionisio 0:03 Hi, Sara.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:23 Hey, Jen.
Jen Dionisio 0:24 Wanna get riled up for today's topic?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:27 When do I not want to get riled up?
Jen Dionisio 0:28 Right? So here's something I read today: a third of men don't believe or aren't quite sure that there's a gender gap in wages.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:38 I wish that were more surprising to me. But unfortunately, I hear that and I go, "Yep, sounds about right." I've been on LinkedIn.
Jen Dionisio 0:45 That feels like kind of a common theme on this show. Right?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:48 Totally. It's like awful, but it's not surprising.
Jen Dionisio 0:51 Uh. Well, let's get into it. So hello, and welcome to Per My Last Email: the show about what to do when work gets weird. I'm Jen Dionisio.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:01 And I'm Sara Wachter-Boettcher. And Jen, let me guess—today we're going to talk about pay equity?
Jen Dionisio 1:06 You bet we are.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:07 Ugh. But also yay, right? Because I think this is a topic that comes up a lot in coaching. I don't know if you remember this. Jen, do you remember that that's something we talked about way back when you were not a coach yet, but you were actually a client?
Jen Dionisio 1:20 Yes. So for those of you listening, Sara helped me when I found out I was drastically underpaid for my level and had been for quite some time. And so I was told that and had no idea how to figure out what I was actually supposed to be making and how to make sure that that number was big enough. So big ups to you, Sara, to helping me through that many moons ago.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:48 Yeah, you're welcome, of course. And also, it's just such a common issue that people face and I think particularly women face, where the pay inequity exists, and then there's also all these other questions like, "Is this intentional? Or was this just sort of people's unconscious bias? What do I do about it? If I speak up about it, are people going to think X, or Y, or Z about me?" And it starts to become this whole spiraling thing in people's heads. And so I'm really excited we're going to talk about it. What kind of questions we got?
Jen Dionisio 2:18 Yeah. Well, the first dilemma we have is from a government project officer. So let's call them PG.
PG 2:27 I'm an American who came to France 20 years ago. After a decade of teaching English, I did an MA in sustainable development and scored a job working for the French régional government. I was super thrilled to have made this transition and felt like I had successfully set up the start of a great career. Then I found out that my colleagues in the same position and with similar work experience were earning more than me. While I had initially accepted what seemed like a reasonable (but not great) salary, I have been heavily invested in key projects for my division, so I asked HR for a raise.
They spent weeks saying they were working on the file until suddenly declaring that there was a rule in place that made it impossible to revise my salary and that, because of the rules of the government agency, I would have an automatic raise every few years but could never have any other type of adjustment. Since my colleagues will also have this automatic increase, as long as I stay with my structure, I will be earning less than my coworkers for the same work. I want to leave, to stand up for myself, but I will need to take out a loan in a few months and have to be able to show workplace stability to ensure I can borrow the money to build my house. I have a bit under 3 years left on my contract.
When I know I am being treated unfairly, but it isn't yet strategic to leave, what can I do to help make the wait bearable, and how much do I disclose to coworkers and hierarchy about my intentions to leave? My employer has been underpaying me, but they do offer free training, so I am thinking about using the training to build up my skills and then go to a different structure willing/able to offer a better salary or at least one that isn’t lower than all my colleagues.
Jen Dionisio 4:21 Sara, PG stands for "Pay Gap." So how can they get through this waiting period and "make the weight bearable" as they say?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 4:31 Yeah, oh, PG, I hear this. When we know that we need to leave a situation, but it's not quite time, it can be so hard to kind of sit through that waiting period. But I do want to say I understand why you're making that choice. And I just want to affirm that it sounds like that's a really thoughtful choice for you. So the first thing that I might suggest is actually to write that down. What are the reasons that you've decided to stay? It's really helpful then to remind yourself, "I'm putting up with this for a reason," like, "I'm putting up with this in service of my broader goals."
And then second, I would also encourage you to write down what do you need to have in place before deciding to make the jump? And the reason that I'm suggesting that you do that as well is that when you start getting into that mindset of, "Okay, I'm going to wait it out. I'm sticking it out. I'm waiting it out," that can take over and you can start to wait it out for longer than you need to.
Jen Dionisio 5:29 Ooh.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 5:29 So if you start writing out all those conditions that you want to have in place before leaving, like getting a loan on your home, that can remind you, "Okay, I've met those conditions. Now it's time to start looking," so that you don't end up delaying that process. The other thing that that will help you do is really start thinking about, "Okay, what are the steps that I could start taking right now to help me be more prepared when the time does come?" One thing you might want to look at is okay, what kind of skills might you want to have? What are some of those things you want to solidify? And speaking of that, I know you mentioned, right, that there is these opportunities to take some training at your organization. You were wondering if you should do that, and my thought is, hell yeah, take that free training.
Jen Dionisio 6:12 Hell, yes.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 6:12 Anything there that feels useful, take it. But I think it's really helpful there to go, "What will be useful for me next?" because what would be useful to you in your current role may or may not be applicable to the next thing you want to do. So I would say this is a great time to start thinking about what are some of the roles that you'd love to be applying for in six months, or a year, or whenever it is that the conditions are right? What are the organizations that seem interesting, and when they post jobs, what are the expectations that they have for skills and capacities?
And use that to really focus your energy, because there might be things in your current role where your manager would say, "Oh, you should do this training or that training," and actually, that might not be the best use of your time when you're looking forward. So I'll encourage you to spend some time thinking about that forward plan for yourself.
Jen Dionisio 6:58 Sara, I'm so glad you mentioned that because I feel like in some jobs where I was really unhappy with the pay, what kind of got me through was, "Alright, well, I am taking every bit of professional development I can get." And to me, even though I still was pretty frustrated and unhappy about some of those pay discrepancies, it made me feel a little less sore about what I wasn't getting, and kind of focused me on thinking of what I could get for myself.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 7:31 Yeah, I think that can be really helpful to kind of like, ward off cynicism.
Jen Dionisio 7:36 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 7:36 Because if you're frustrated with something in your organization, and PG, to be clear, has plenty of reasons to be frustrated. It sucks to hear that your pay isn't equitable, and there's nothing that we can do about it. But I think living in that cynical place is really draining for people. And so if it's not strategic to leave, identifying something that you can get invested in that feels good and that feels like it's for you can really make the difference in sort of how it feels to deal with work day to day. So I love the idea of digging into some new skills. And the other thing that this got me thinking about is that this sounds like a really great window of time for PG to start networking.
Jen Dionisio 8:14 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 8:15 In their letter, they talked about how they got into this role after they got a master's degree. And so this sounds like this is their first job in their new field post-master's. And that makes me think that their network probably could stand any bigger. I mean, for almost anybody I've ever met, who has had one role after school, they don't necessarily know that many people yet. And so, PG, I would consider, you know, what kind of network do you have in sustainable development? Where have your grad school peers ended up? And have you kept up with them? And if you haven't, might it be time to reconnect with them? Where have the people who've left the agency you're at now ended up? What other organizations do they work at? What industry events do your peers attend? What's sort of like on the radar for people in your field?
Because if you start being a little bit more visible in the field overall, and you start building deeper connections with the people in your field, that can play a huge role in a few things: One, knowing what's out there in terms of jobs, because it's really easy when you work in one place to kind of like have your head down and not know the wide range of things out there. And then two: have more connections to people who can help you get a job in those places. That's something that you can start doing right now. You don't have to wait until you're ready to leave to start that process. In fact, starting it now, that gives you a place to focus your energy.
If you wait until you're like ready to leave, and then you realize like, "Oh, I don't actually know how to find these roles, or my network is kind of lean," then it might feel a little deflating to have to put in all that work. But right now, what that can do for you is to give you a place to focus your energy that's outside of your job, but that's still connected to your professional identity. It'll give you a chance to really feel like you're making progress on moving yourself forward, feeling like a little less stuck, and the other thing that it'll do is help you set some boundaries with your current job. Because when we're invested in other things, when we have other priorities, when we have plans, that does tend to help us keep the current job in perspective and keep a little bit more emotional distance. So I'd really suggest that you think about where you want to invest so that it's a little easier to divest from your current organization.
Jen Dionisio 10:31 Amen. Yeah. And I'm so happy that you mentioned that. So often, when people hear about, like, networking, it feels really overwhelming, and like, "Oh, my God, I'm gonna have to put myself out there in a world of strangers." But so often, that networking that is most successful is networking we do with people we already know and just need to send an email to. So I love that suggestion.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 10:53 Yeah. And also doing it early keeps it from being just purely transactional, like, "I'm reaching out, because you work at a company that I want a job from." That doesn't feel as good. But if it's more like, "I'm reaching out, because I want to connect and see where your career has gone and trade notes," that feels a lot better, usually, for everybody involved.
Jen Dionisio 11:12 So Sara, with PG's second question, should they tell people at work that they're planning to leave?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 11:18 Yeah, that's a really personal choice, PG. And I think without knowing enough about the norms and standards in France, I don't know what the right choice is there or sort of what the potential risks are. So what I would say is this: PG, I don't think you owe it to anybody to give them that information. Especially right now, things are pretty up in the air, you don't quite have a next step or a timeline. And so you may be giving them information that then makes them see you differently, but then isn't really acted upon for a while.
And so that just might not be necessary. But the other thing is, you know, I know that in France, rules around like firing somebody for, you know, planning to leave, that's going to be stricter than in the US. It's harder to get rid of people. So maybe in your situation, it's less risky to tell people that you're planning to leave, maybe that's more normal there. I don't really know that part. I know that a lot of times when I work with folks in the US, they're really cagey about letting their organization know that they're interested in leaving, because they sometimes get retaliated against if they do that.
So that's something I would encourage you to kind of think about is like what feels safe in your organization. The other side of this, though, and I'm curious if this is part of what was driving PG's question, is that like sense of guilt. That it's wrong to know you're leaving, but not saying anything. That it's like wrong to withhold information from your company. And if that is coming up for you at all, PG, what I would say to that is this: your organization has told you directly that you will not ever get equitable pay from them, ever. Ever. So if they can't offer that, at a minimum, what makes you owe so much to them? What makes you owe them all of this information about the things you're thinking about in your life and your personal decisions?
Personally, I don't think that this is relevant for the organization until you're much closer to walking out the door. And so if you want to tell maybe a friend or two at the company that you're thinking of leaving, if you feel like that is somebody who's going to support you in your journey, great. But I think if you're coming at this from a lens of like, feeling guilty for not sharing all the info, I will just encourage you to maybe reframe that a little bit and think about, "What is the relationship that we have with each other, me and this organization? What am I getting from them, and what makes me feel like I owe this to them?"
Jen Dionisio 13:40 PG, your first obligation is to yourself, not your job. And with your entry into a brand new field, you're going to have a long and successful career ahead. So do all the things that you need to do to make sure that your needs are getting met and you're moving forward in a way that honors what you wanted to do when you started this new path. So we are wishing you lots of luck, and stay strong until you're ready to leave.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 14:10 Yeah, I love all of this about reorienting, about moving forward.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 14:17 All right, Jen, speaking of moving forward, do you have a second question for me?
Jen Dionisio 14:21 Oh, I do. So this one comes from someone we'll call UC for "Under-compensated."
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 14:29 I'm sensing a trend with the naming conventions today.
Jen Dionisio 14:32 Yeah. Unfortunately, there are so many options to choose from.
UC 14:37 I recently moved into management and I’m now managing someone who is at the same level as I was before a promotion earlier this year. He does similar work in the same location as I do, and has been at our company roughly as long as me. Because I’m now his manager, I can see his compensation and found out today that last year when I was still an IC and got promoted, he got a bigger raise than I did (even though he wasn’t promoted) and he’s making about as much as I do now as a manager while staying at a lower level IC position.
I’m really glad he’s being compensated so well and have no problem with him, but it doesn’t feel good knowing that I’m probably being underpaid while taking on more responsibility. It doesn’t help that he’s a man and it makes me feel like there’s a gender bias here. I don’t know what to do or how to handle this without sounding like I’m whining. This whole thing would bother me less if this person was at the same level as me on our career ladder but even before my move to management, he was a level below me and still being compensated more than me for doing less. Should I say something to my manager about this pay discrepancy or should I keep quiet?
Jen Dionisio 15:43 Whoo. I have been there. But I only found out about it after the person had left. So I know that this feels really, really crappy.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 15:53 Yeah. What did you do about it? Did you say something when you found out?
Jen Dionisio 15:55 I was actually on my way out, too. So I found this out in my last week at work. So it was kind of too late all around. But it really does color things when I look back, you know, and think about all the time and effort that I put into some of my direct reports, which I love to do. But knowing all the extra time and attention that I was putting into somebody who was actually like, making a lot more money than me really has made me have a bad taste in my mouth to this point.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 16:29 Yeah, that stuff can really stick with you.
Jen Dionisio 16:32 Yeah, it sure does. So back to UC, how should she handle this?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 16:38 Yeah, well, UC's core question is, should she say something or keep quiet? And you know, ultimately, I think that's something that only UC can decide. But I suspect that if they really wanted to stay quiet about it, they wouldn't have written us.
Jen Dionisio 16:52 Mm-hmm.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 16:53 And like you, I suspect this is something that might stick with them. If they don't say something about it.
Jen Dionisio 16:58 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 16:59 So UC, I'm wondering if your dilemma here is actually really more along the lines of, "I want to say something, but I'm scared of the consequences." And so if that feels right, then what I might suggest that you do next is really look at the risk from both sides. So what might it cost you to speak up? And what is it costing you to stay silent? Now, there's an obvious financial cost here: like, if you don't speak up, that disparity is going to persist.
But when I say "cost," I'm thinking about a bunch of different things. So how might continuing to be underpaid and staying quiet about it affect your energy and optimism? Like, how you feel about the work you're doing? How might it affect your sense of belonging and being valued in your workplace? How might it affect your sense of self and the way that you see yourself at work? When we feel like something unfair has happened to us, it's often not just the thing that was unfair itself, it's also that it reduces our trust, like, "Was this on purpose? Or do they not realize? Is it systemic? Am I just not valued here?"
And then, you know, we can kind of swallow that inequity, leave those questions unanswered, and wind up doing more and more rumination, and suspicion, and then having our guard up, because we, you know, we don't feel like we can trust the people around us. And so over time, that can be really exhausting. So one of the things that I've really noticed is that staying silent sometimes seems like the easy choice, but it actually turns into this choice that is painful over and over and over again.
Jen Dionisio 18:32 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 18:33 So that's something I'll encourage you to think about, UC: if you don't speak up, what might it cost you? And if it's gonna eat away at you, that might be a really big price tag that's actually a lot bigger than the risk of speaking up.
Jen Dionisio 18:45 Yeah. And Sara, I imagine that for UC, if they're like me, and what I experienced, the gender issue that's part of this is a big deal because I think, in a lot of ways that actually made it worse.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:03 Yeah, yeah. And it's one of the things that's really hard about these disparities is that sometimes you like suspect that it's gender-related, but it's nothing you can necessarily prove, because, of course, one individual instance of an inequity between a man and a woman does not necessarily mean that it's a gender thing. But also frequently it's a gender thing.
Jen Dionisio 19:24 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:24 And I think we know systemically that that issue is real. And so yeah, I think that that's a piece of it is that sometimes that feels like if we bring up the gendered aspect, are we going to be fought with about that? Is somebody going to take us seriously? And the other thing is, like, there's a gendered aspect to having the conversation because women particularly are not always treated fairly when they speak up about these issues. Like, there's a reason that we might feel afraid to have these conversations because it's so easy to be perceived as being too aggressive, right? Or like that you are being demanding or difficult. These kinds of labels that get attached—
Jen Dionisio 20:02 "Difficult."
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 20:03 Uh-huh. I mean, I've been called difficult a few times in my life. A few 100 times, probably. But I think that those labels can be attached to women so easily. And I know that a lot of women are very reticent to put themselves in situations where that can happen to them. But then that leaves them in this place where they're silent about something that is harming them. And so it's like, it feels like this, you know, "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
So UC, what I think might be valuable for you to do here is to really look at the potential risks of speaking up, both in your organization and with your manager. How much do you trust them? Have you seen other people get labeled as "difficult" or "complainers" if they've spoken up in the past? What is your sense of how safe it is for you to speak up? What's your sense of whether you could talk to your manager privately in a way that maybe is about feeling out this conversation without your manager taking it further? Right? Like, can you trust them to be sort of your initial sounding board here?
Some of those questions might be useful for you to kind of sort out what is safe for you, and maybe what isn't safe for you. One thing I want to flag though, is that if your current manager was the person who promoted you, and the person who gave your colleague that raise, I just want to flag drawing attention to the inequity could easily make that person defensive. Because if your manager was the one who made the choice, right, that like "this was your salary, this was this person's salary," and you speak up about it, it's very easy that that will make them feel challenged or attacked. And then when that happens, people are very likely to react in a way where they sort of try to shut down the conversation.
And that's not fair. But I want to flag it because it's a really common response that people have to conflict or to perceived criticism. Like, for example, if you've ever heard someone get called out for saying something sexist or racist, and then immediately start to argue and defend themselves, and then the whole conversation becomes about how actually, they're a good person. And actually, they wouldn't do something like that. Yeah, that's a defense response. And it can completely derail the actual conversation that you want to have. And so again, this isn't fair. People should learn how to hear feedback like this and not just react to it, but it's hard. And a lot of people have never learned that skill.
So if that's a concern for you, it might be helpful to think about how you approach the conversation in a way that gives your manager a little bit of space, and maybe even like, positions it as an organizational issue versus a personal thing that they did. And in fact, if you can find a way to have that conversation where your manager feels like them stepping up and stepping in puts them into a little bit of a hero role where they're helping you fix it, that can also make it a little bit easier for them to swallow. Again, that's a lot of work that isn't necessarily fair to fall on your shoulders. I think there's a lot of emotional labor in there in figuring that out. But I think it might be valuable just in terms of getting your needs met here.
Jen Dionisio 23:03 Yeah. And I think, too, if you tentatively even put out that initial kind of observation, like, "My salary is different than this person's even though I manage them," you never actually know whether your manager is just as frustrated as you are about the situation.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 23:20 Yes.
Jen Dionisio 23:21 I know, that was the case with me, and why they wanted to get it off their chest before I left, because it was an apology I didn't need because I didn't know it was happening. But they were so upset about it that they wanted me to know.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 23:33 Yeah. So like, you might find that actually, your manager is already on your side. You might find that there's other information out there that you just don't know about yet about why that happened, or how that happened. And that might change the way you see it. So I do think it's valuable to think about how you can approach this with your manager, because it really sounds like something where you would like to fix it, and you would like to at least surface it and talk about it.
And so as you consider what you do here, I would also suggest kind of looking at your options a little more broadly. Meaning, in your letter, UC, you have framed things as kind of a binary: "Do I speak up? Or do I stay silent?" Either/or. And what I might suggest is that you instead kind of chart your options on a continuum or a scale from like 0 to 10, where 0 is do nothing and sit with this knowledge and feel bad. And then 10 is like sauntering into a meeting to air your grievances and demand a pay raise immediately.
Jen Dionisio 24:32 Do it.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 24:34 Well, right, but like that 10? That's a big one, right? Like that one might not be successful.
Jen Dionisio 24:37 I would never do that.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 24:38 Yeah, you're probably not going to do a 10. Living in the 0 sounds like it sucks. So what are some options in between? And by thinking about it as a spectrum, you can start to ask yourself like, "Okay, what does a 5 look like? What does a 3 look like? What does an 8 look like?" And you might find that this helps you generate some ideas for how you can speak up in a way that feels more in alignment with the level of risk that you're sensing exists right now in your organization.
And I think that speaks to something that you were saying, Jen, which is like, a lower level of risk, but still speaking up might be approaching the conversation with your manager from more of a lens of curiosity: "I noticed that this disparity exists. It really surprised me to find this out. I'd like to understand how this happens. Is this a common thing? What avenues are available in my organization to address inequities like this?" These are all kind of curious questions that you could kind of start a conversation with that doesn't necessarily lead to an assumption that somebody's doing something wrong, that this was done on purpose, that this is bias.
All of that might be true. But I think that it is really helpful sometimes to kind of pull back from that and say, "Okay, how do I show up in a way that is curious to finding out what the story is?" And the other thing is, maybe you can ask some questions about the salary bands. Are all these numbers that you're seeing, are they all within official salary bands? Or are they outside of them? If they're outside of them, well, what leads an organization to decide to pay somebody outside of band? What would be a scenario where you now as a new manager might be needing to pay somebody out of band? That's important information for you to have as a manager, even independent of your own situation.
And so like I said, this is a way to learn some stuff that's going to help you decide the additional action you want to take or what approach you want to take. So like, for example, let's say your colleague got an outside offer. And the only reason that he got that big of a raise was because they were trying to retain him. You know, we can have opinions about whether that's a good practice or an equitable practice, but that information might change how you see the issue, and it might change the conversations that you have about the issue.
Jen Dionisio 26:45 Yeah. And Sara, that was actually my exact situation: it was a retention bump. And I suspect that because of the, like, hiring frenzy that happened at the start of the pandemic, there may be a lot of people who had those pay bands blown up during that period. And I'll say like, I know that there was a lot of effort put in afterwards to try to start realigning all of those, including raises for the people who kind of got the loyalty tax. And so you might be pleasantly surprised if there's work going on behind the scenes that is actually intending to increase your pay, even if you're not aware of those conversations happening when you're not in the room.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 27:26 Mm. Yeah, I mean, I think that's such a perfect example. And you know, your organization might not be this forward-thinking. You don't have to be super generous in necessarily assuming that they're doing all of this great stuff behind the scenes.
Jen Dionisio 27:37 Yeah, don't.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 27:38 What we're suggesting is maybe more like just being a little bit open to the fact that could be happening. And even approaching the conversation from a place of curiosity, even if you think that's not happening, because that can open up the conversation in ways that end up being generative for you, as opposed to sort of like jumping to conclusions too quickly, and then people kind of shutting down the conversation with you, which I know you don't want. So there is one other thing, though, that I wanted to highlight here.
And I think it's something UC already knows, but I want to say it out loud. This is not really about her colleague. You know, she says it right? She says she's really glad he's so well compensated. And I think that's a great mindset to stay in. I think that's going to help you, because it's going to help you go into any conversation really focused on the actual issues, which are about correcting your compensation and highlighting issues of equity in the company. And I think that's going to help you stay out of the space that I suspect is not going to be generative, and also not going to be the space where you feel the best about yourself, which is if you go in with a lens of like attacking or criticizing him or his performance.
If you make it about how he's not worth it, and you're worth it, or a personal value thing, that I think is going to be unhelpful ground for everybody. And so what I might suggest is really to name the disparity that you noticed, but then as quickly as possible, move away from discussing him, and particularly him versus you, and really instead ask questions that are more focused on you, your pay, how you fit into the org, and what the standards and norms are for the org. So like, you might talk about how, you know, "I noticed this discrepancy between me and this person on my team. It seemed to confirm a concern I've been having for a while about pay equity. I'd like to better understand how my comp stacks up to the pay band or compares to other people at my level. What would explain a disparity like this? What can we do to fix it?" So it really shifts it from being about him to being about the actual issues that you want to address.
Jen Dionisio 29:45 Yeah, it sounds like you could really try to make this person feel like they're being your ally by kind of bringing them into solving this problem together, if that's something that they're open to taking on.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 29:59 Yeah. And you know, UC, one thing I really think you have going for you here is that you're going into this conversation with a pretty high level of certainty that your performance is good, that the perception of your performance is good. You received a promotion and then shortly after that were moved into management, I believe is how I understood it from your letter that those are two different things. Those are two votes of confidence for your work and your value to the organization which means it's going to be very hard for the organization to argue that the reason you got a smaller raise than your peer was due to performance.
And so all said, I think you've got a really good case to have a productive conversation. And it does sound to me like doing something here is important to you, UC. And so if this is really continuing to take up brain space and make you feel bad, I will really recommend you invest some time in figuring out how to have a conversation about it. I don't know how your manager is going to receive that conversation. But I think that your best bet is if you go in with curiosity, really avoid either attacking the person who has the higher salary or attacking your manager, then you're doing what you can do. And if your manager still chooses to see that conversation as "whining," I think that says a lot about them, and not you.
Jen Dionisio 31:14 Absolutely. And I also think that the sooner that you say something, the less you're going to be stuck with this really nasty, uncomfortable feeling inside of you that could really impact how you feel at work, and possibly even how you treat the people on your team. So whatever number on the spectrum that you decide to follow, I really hope that you feel confident bringing this up and getting it resolved.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 31:45 Thanks for writing in UC. We'd love an update if you ever have a moment to tell us.
Emily Duncan 31:50 Hey there, it's Emily, PMLE's producer. Sara, Jen and I are really excited about a workshop we're hosting on October 12, called "Own Your Impact with StrengthsFinder." It's designed and led by content designer Rachel de Jong, who's also a certified Gallup StrengthsFinder coach. Rachel's seen a lot of people take talent assessments and not know what to do with the information they learn. That's why she wants to help you make sense of your results and go deeper on what they mean, like determining if your most celebrated superpowers are actually coping mechanisms. Or if you're hiding your strengths because they're not the same old status quo qualities other leaders have. The workshop price includes the cost of taking the assessment and Rachel's expert analysis of your individual results. Want to learn more? Head to https://www.activevoicehq.com/events/own-your-impact. Now back to the show.
Jen Dionisio 32:45 Sara, are you ready for our last dilemma?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 32:48 I sure am.
Jen Dionisio 32:49 This one is from a product design manager. Let's take a listen.
R&D 32:53 I recently moved into a design manager role at my company and gained information from another design manager about our pay bands. I found out that I was brought in under band when I initially joined the company. I took a pay cut to come to this company, despite coming in at a level above where I was previously working, and was told that I was actually getting overpaid at the previous place. I AM DAMN GOOD AT MY JOB. People tell me so, and I know it, so I was excited when I took this role. But what most people don't know is that I've been underpaid at nearly every job I've had in my career, and some days I can't get over the rage and despair.
The company talks the talk about DEI, and my own manager likes to tweet and post on social media about it, but as a person on the team that belongs to more than one underrepresented minority group, and the "only" on the design leadership team, I'm having a hard time not feeling like a diversity hire. I don't want to fall for the overworking hustle of trying to prove myself to other people who are wired to not see me as an equal in the workplace. I've done that before, and it's not worth the price I pay with my health.
I've since talked to other folks in similar roles and brought it up to my manager, who seems to be receptive. But I don't have access to the manager pay bands, and am not sure where I fare as compared to my peers. This is what's really bothering me–I am feeling a sense of betrayal, and am having a hard time trusting the word and intention of my boss and other people at the company. Even if he "fixes" my salary, I am having a hard time knowing if I can trust him moving forward I've had to advocate pretty hard for myself to have my role made official in HR's book, and while I'm hiring, firing, and org-building as much as the other managers, I'm still carrying my old stack of IC work, and not being invited to special manager "fun" events. This has day-to-day implications on how much my former peers respect my authority, my own self-confidence and motivation to set goals for myself for this career.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 34:45 There is a lot happening here, and all of it sounds really painful. I am so sorry that you are going through this.
Jen Dionisio 34:53 Me too. I'm going to call this person R&D for "Rage and Despair," which honestly sounds like a very reasonable reaction to this shitty, unjust situation. So Sara, if you were working with R&D, where would you start?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 35:11 Yeah, well, like I said, there's a lot here. And something I noticed, R&D is that you don't quite name a dilemma or a question. And that makes me feel like you might be what I like to call stuck in the swirl, meaning you've got a lot of reasons to be upset, and you can name them all and all of them are valid, but where you're kind of in the middle of them, and there's not enough distance yet to go from venting, to kind of figuring out what your next step is, and what you want to do about it. And so that's maybe where I'd start is like, how do we help R&D get out of the swirl here?
Jen Dionisio 35:43 It's so easy to just kind of stay on that swirl forever. So I'm glad we're giving R&D an off-ramp.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 35:50 Yeah. So to get onto that off-ramp out of the swirl, the first thing I might suggest that R&D do is start to look back over all of those details they shared with us about their manager, about their pay, about trying to get their position recognized with HR, about being excluded from activities, all of those things. And really look at those details together. When you look at your overall experience at this company to date, what is the picture that emerges? I'm suggesting that R&D do that, because I suspect if they really zoom out, they might see that there's been quite a lot of messages that they've received that tell them that this organization does not value them in an equitable way.
And what I'm sensing is that there's a part of R&D that still knows how bad it's been, but is still showing up hoping things will change. And that's a really easy stuck spot to get into where you're both like really experiencing a lot of harm, but also won't quite like except that the organization is like this. So it's like you're hoping for your manager to step up, but then also you don't trust them, even if they did. You are feeling disillusioned by the company, but you're still putting in a lot of effort to try to get them to see you and value you. And when you're in that sort of spot, it can easily wind up feeling like, "If I just try one more thing, maybe things will get better. If I just position myself a little bit differently, if I just package up my case a little bit better, something's going to change. Something's going to change." And I've seen people do that for years without ever once getting any indication that things are actually going to change.
Jen Dionisio 37:36 Me too.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 37:37 Yeah. And so R&D, I just, I don't want that for you. I don't want you to feel like you have to constantly keep trying and trying and trying and trying without getting results. So first up, zoom out, look at the patterns, look at all the effort you've put in and look at what the results of that effort have been so far. And I'm just going to encourage you to be honest with yourself, even if this is a little bit painful. Is it worth it for you to keep trying to make things change?
Jen Dionisio 38:04 Whoo. Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 38:06 And to be clear, there's not a right answer here. I mean, maybe when R&D zooms out, they will notice that they have gotten somewhere, that there are things that have shifted, that there's been a lot of progress. I mean, the letter that they sent in doesn't tell us everything about what's going on. So maybe there is something there. But you know, maybe when R&D zooms out, they realize they're absolutely exhausted, and all they've gotten is lip service.
And so what I encourage is just, you know, R&D, be honest with yourself about what this has taken from you, and what it's given you. And think about whether you want to continue fighting in this space. As part of that, I would also suggest that R&D Look at their manager relationship. So R&D, you said that you feel betrayed. And my experience is that that is a really hard feeling to come back from. Not impossible, but difficult. And so I'd ask yourself first, how open are you to trying to repair that relationship? And maybe more to the point: How open are you to being the one to initiate the repair process?
Jen Dionisio 39:10 Ooh, that's such a good point because it really does sound like there is awareness that this is happening, but nothing's changing. So it is going to be in R&D's court to start these conversations.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 39:25 Right.
Jen Dionisio 39:26 Sara, like, what does repair look like in this conversation, especially with like, a power differential there?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 39:33 Yeah, I mean, that's where I think things get a little bit dicey because if your manager was coming to you R&D and saying, like, "Hey, I realize that I've made promises to you that I haven't kept and blah blah blah blah blah, and I want to do things differently. Can we work on repair?" That would be a different conversation. But if you're the one who's kind of going into that conversation, trying to initiate and make that happen, then I think you really have to think about are you prepared to be open and have some vulnerability with your manager? Can you let your guard down around this manager? Because that's really where repair comes from is that both parties have to be willing to participate vulnerably and openly.
Otherwise, if you go in there and you still have your guard up, because you feel betrayed and you don't feel a sense of trust, then you're not going to be able to have an open conversation about your needs, about what's not working, about what it would take for you to move forward. And this is even setting aside them, right? Like your manager also would need to show up to the conversation like that and be willing to have that conversation. But just speaking for yourself, is that something that you feel prepared to do.
And honestly, R&D based on what you shared, I'm not confident you're in a place where you'll want to put your guard down with this person. And I just want to affirm that if that's where you're at, that is okay. You do not need to get yourself to a place where you want to put your guard down with this person if what you have seen from them is that they're not a safe person to do that with. And so I say this, because I really think that true repair is only going to come if you're able to get to that place. And so trying to engage in some sort of reparative conversation with your manager, without getting to that place, that is unlikely to be productive. And I think it might be better to kind of like, cut your losses and move on, if that's where you're at.
Jen Dionisio 41:20 It's such a good point. And I think it's easy to think that you're doing something wrong if you're not open to repair, and you don't want to put that guard down. But already, you know, R&D has been hurt and harmed and betrayed here. And they don't need to open up more opportunities for that.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 41:40 Yeah. Like there's a reason the guard is up, you know?
Jen Dionisio 41:44 Yeah, it didn't start that way.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 41:46 Right. Yeah. And I want to honor that. You don't have to put that down. But if you want repair, you will have to so you think there's a choice to be made there.
Jen Dionisio 41:54 So Sara, let's think about it from the other angle. If R&D isn't open to repair, then what?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 42:00 Well, then I think it's really about accepting that this is the organization you work for. That doesn't mean being okay with it or liking it, you never have to sort of think that it's fine. But accepting that this is what is happening: "I work in an organization that routinely tells me one thing, and then does another. I work in an organization that has given me more responsibility, and added all these things to my plate as a manager, but has not given me the same kind of power or control or opportunities or visibility as other managers. And they're continuing to choose to do that."
And so once you can accept what reality is, then you can let go of this idea of like, "I need to convince people. I need to fight people. I need to constantly be working and working and working to try to make things different." It kind of gives you a little bit more freedom to say, "Okay, this is the reality of where I am. How do I want to behave? What is my next step here?" And that can help you decide, "Well, what I need to do is take care of myself. I need to remind myself that this isn't my fault. And maybe I need to think about getting out or changing my relationship to this work." And I will say I really want R&D To think about leaving their company.
Jen Dionisio 43:17 Yeah, please.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 43:18 Well, and to be clear, not because I know that that is the right answer for them. I don't know. My job here is not to tell you that you should quit. But my job here R&D is to say, "Hey, I see you putting a lot of yourself into trying to make this relationship work. Like you are working hard on making this relationship function. And it's still not working." So I will encourage you to put quitting on the table, let it be a real option. You don't have to take that option. But until quitting is on the table as a true choice you could make, it's very easy to keep telling ourselves, "I have to keep doing this, finding a new job will be impossible, I'm stuck here."
And we can really convince ourselves that the only option is to keep trying, keep trying, keep trying. Just work harder. Sometimes things are not fixable. And sometimes the hurt of continuing to try is even greater than the uncertainty of leaving without something lined up. Like there's a moment where it's more important to do self-preservation than anything. But the thing is, when leaving, when quitting isn't on the table, it can be hard to see that. So put quitting on the table. It is a choice. It is a choice that is available to you. And then you can really assess your options and your trade-offs more directly and more honestly. What feels right? What's gonna give me space to take care of myself? What's gonna let me heal? What feels like a sustainable long term decision for myself?
Jen Dionisio 44:46 Whoo. R&D, I really hope this is a good start for you to begin sorting out all of these feelings you're having and getting out of that swirl and feeling more confident and clear about what you want to do next and what's best for you. We're here for you. Let us know what you decide.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 45:06 Oh, Jen, all of these questions today just tugged at my heart. Because it's not just like a money thing. So much of what's come up is about trust and betrayal and belonging. I'm mad at companies, because I feel like they could make all of this a lot easier and more straightforward if they just like, publish salary bands, give people transparent access to information, I mean, life would just be a lot easier.
Jen Dionisio 45:31 Yeah, people wouldn't have to guess. And like, unfortunately, we live in a culture where your value is often represented in what you're paid, and what you're paid in comparison to the people around you. And so it's so easy to just like take this on as some sort of, you know, judgment on who you are and what your worth is when, like so often it has to do with so many other things that are also shitty, but not yours to carry, even though you're the one stuck with all the feelings from it.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 46:05 Yeah.
Jen Dionisio 46:06 I'm trying to think of ways that we can all help each other when our organizations aren't providing this transparency. Like, I've seen so many job postings that like "Yay, they're showing the pay band." The pay band has like a $300,000 span. Like, there's no real real information in that.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 46:27 I know. It's a real clever trick they do to get around laws in some places that require you to share that info. I mean, I think the biggest thing that everybody listening can do is to start talking more openly about money and salary and wages with the people that you know.
Jen Dionisio 46:41 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 46:41 It's uncomfortable. For a lot of people, a lot of us have been trained that it's impolite. But I really believe that when people don't have information about what's typical, what's happening with other people, it's really easy to get trapped in your head, to question yourself, or to just take whatever the company says is at its word. And I think that the reality is that companies are pretty incentivized to try not to pay you the full amount that you're worth or the full amount that other people might be paid.
And so we can help each other out. I love all of those community efforts that are like, "Let's make a spreadsheet of everybody's salary in these different companies. Let's share information within a company." That's where you know unionizing really also helps. There's oftentimes a lot of work around pay transparency when it comes to union demands. I love all of it. And I hope that it really pressures organizations to change.
Jen Dionisio 47:33 Hear! Hear!
Jen Dionisio 47:41 And that's it for this week's episode. Per My Last Email is a production of Active Voice. Check us out at https://www.activevoicehq.com/ and get all the past episodes show notes and full transcripts for Per My Last Email at https://pmleshow.com/. This episode was produced by Emily Duncan. Our theme music is "(I'm a) Modern Woman" by Maria T. Buy her album at https://thisismariat.bandcamp.com/. Thank you to Pay Gap, Under-compensated, and Rage and Despair for submitting their stories for today's show. And thank you for listening. If you've got a work dilemma eating away at you, send it over to us, head to https://pmleshow.com/ to submit your story. See you next time.