1 in 5 Women Fear Negotiating Pay Will Damage Their Career

One in five women in the UK fear negotiating pay will damage their career, revealed a new study.

Additionally, seven out of 10 women feel anxiety or worry about negotiating pay, compared to half of all men who feel confident about it, according to the study carried out by workplace equity platform, Syndio. The study suggests that UK employers are not doing enough to address the ‘Confidence Gap’, which is still hindering pay equity between men and women. The report, carried out to coincide with the UK’s gender pay gap reporting deadline on 4th April, suggests that while salary transparency is a hugely important step towards creating a more equitable culture, women are still more likely to feel that negotiating their pay will be perceived negatively by their employer.

When negotiating salary, women often feel a fear of being rejected (25%). This is followed by a lack of confidence (23%), and concern about being seen as ‘pushy’ and risk of damaging their career (21%). Men on the other hand feel overwhelmingly confident when negotiating pay, noted the study. They feel well prepared and know their worth and confident that it won’t affect their career. They also believe it will improve how they are perceived.

Among those who said they had asked for a pay increase and received one, there was little difference between the genders. However, men were almost twice more likely to ask for a raise than women (21% compared to 12%). And, they are more likely to ask for more. On average, men who negotiated a pay rise requested a 7.5% increase and received 6.6%. On the other hand, women that asked for 6.8% and got 5.9%. These figures suggest that confidence, in itself, has the potential to directly affect pay equity.

GENDER PAY GAP

Disparities at the very top of organisations and lack of visibility of women in senior leadership teams are core contributors to the gender pay gap, noted the study. Among higher earners (above the UK average of £33,000), men rank highly as knowing their market value and feeling well-prepared to negotiate. However, higher-paid women still fall in line with the general trend of feeling overwhelmingly worried about negotiation. Higher earners tend to ask for more and get more. When they asking for an 8.4% increase they are awarded around 7.3%. However, lower earners asking for 6.2% get around a 5.5% rise, also exacerbating the gender pay gap.

Most women over 45 (nearly a third of the total) cited their primary feeling towards pay negotiation as lacking the confidence to follow through on negotiations. This suggests that experienced women aren’t feeling valued or empowered in the workplace, bnoted t This is especially pertinent in light of recent calls for more to be done to champion and support older women.

“Pay transparency is an important step towards workplace equity, but this research shows it isn’t enough. Companies serious about valuing their employees must take more proactive action to close the gap,” shared Ritu Mohanka, MD of EMEA at Syndio. “Rewarding men for being more confident in negotiation is inexcusable. Businesses need to be accountable for addressing these imbalances, looking at workplace equity more holistically and providing employees with the tools and opportunities to achieve their full value and potential.”

PAY TRANSPARENCY

A third of employees believe their company is doing very little or nothing to address unequal pay and opportunities. For organisations where pay bands and gender pay gap data is public however, employers are more likely to be perceived as making good progress on gender equity;  34% versus 24% in companies where pay bands are kept private. In organisations where pay bands are secret, nearly half of the employees perceive the organisation as making very little to no progress to address unequal pay.

Mohanka believes that pay transparency is the first step to creating a positive culture that supports pay equity. “Pay transparency isn’t mandated yet in the UK, but it’s only a matter of time. However, the data shows it pays to get ahead. Transparency actively improves employee perception of your organisation’s commitment to pay equity. Taking meaningful, measurable, and visible action on DE&I and communicating this with your employees is hugely powerful. I urge any organisation submitting their pay gap data this year to ask themselves two questions. 1) what are we really doing to change these figures year on year? 2) what are we telling our employees?” concluded Mohanka.

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