Dear Anna,

I’m a female manager in a mid-sized business and have progressed fairly well but don’t feel like I’m being paid fairly for how much I do. How do I go about asking for a raise without putting anyone’s nose out of joint?

Anon

Dear Anon,

Ah, the age old money worry. Throughout my career in the creative industries I’ve often come across this strange notion that we’re supposed to do what we do for the love and be grateful – because we’re creatives, that’s all we need to thrive, right? Well, no. I’d love to see Santander’s face if I tried to pay this month’s mortgage with love. I don’t imagine the major supermarket chains take that warm and fuzzy emotion in exchange for cold hard cans of food either.

So firstly, if that’s a worry, set it aside. We should of course enjoy and be energised by our work, but it’s also a transactional relationship at the end of the day. We work, they pay, and hopefully both sides feel there’s a decent value exchange going on. Everyone’s happy.

Except in this instance you’re not. It might just be an intuitive sense that you’ve been undervalued, or a clear understanding that a colleague is paid more than you for the same role and responsibilities. Given you mention you’re a woman in the workplace coupled with the fact we still ‘celebrate’ equal pay day – the day the average woman starts working for free thanks to the gender pay gap – means your fears are more likely than not founded.

Whichever end of the spectrum your particular experience is on, and no matter what your gender, if you feel undervalued, you have to tackle it. The good news is there’s brilliant tools out there to help you do it. I’m a huge fan of advertising legend Cindy Gallop. Her LinkedIn profile strapline alone is enough to make me smile: she proclaims “I like to blow shit up, I am the Michael Bay of business”. Gallop developed a Facebook Messenger chat bot that helps you structure your argument to ask for an increase in salary, no matter what your situation.

The broad structure her bot takes is the advice I would give to anyone in a salary negotiation. Firstly, tackle the facts: what’s your current position and how many years of experience do you have? Work out the average salary for that combination – Gallop’s chat bot will tell you, or sites like Glassdoor can give that sort of insight too. If those fail, ask around. Ask friends and colleagues at other companies. If you frame it as wanting to know if what you’re getting is fair, a lot of people will be open and share that info. I once nervously asked a colleague directly and got a clear and honest response (and one that told me I was valued at a lot less than them for the same role) thanks to giving the context.

So then you have the average, but you might not be average. So then it’s time to push your expectations. Take a look at the range your work might be in, and push yourself to the highest point you can, because as Gallop says “if you can build a case, you can get the cash”, because you have to value yourself for other people to value you.

Building that sense of value can be achieved by charting your accomplishments. List out your greatest hits in your role. That might be getting the team to perform better than ever before, winning more awards, more pitches, or creating a really innovative product that’s generating a new stream of revenue for the business. Whatever it is, get it charted and own it because you can be sure that people who are paid more than you are often better at celebrating their successes. Again, knowing your value helps others value you.

Then prepare for tricky questions – why do you think you deserve a pay increase? Why isn’t what you’re getting enough? Here, be your own cheerleader – prepare examples of when you’ve gone above and beyond on and share them. Pin down what you specifically offer that no-one else can. Prove why they need you, and need to keep you happy with a reasonable valuation of salary as well as your broader benefits package.

If they say what you’re asking for is too much, that nobody else at your level in the team is on that, repeat your case that you’re going way above and beyond. Their structure is not your problem. Your employer should know that according to a survey by Glassdoor, 45% of people that quit their jobs wanted a raise. If they’re not taking anything else into account, they should know that churn is way more expensive to them on every dimension than fair salary increases are.

The reason I like this way of approaching the discussion is because it gives you objective tools to make the ask and removes the awkwardness and emotion from it. While the reasons for the gender pay gap are structural, institutional and multitudinous, I know from my own experience that women are often cultured into thinking that asking for more money will be seen as pushy, demanding or greedy. It’s not. As Gallop puts it: “At the end of the day, this is all business. It’s a business environment; this is a business conversation. It is not about, ‘Oh my god! My boss won’t like me anymore if … blah.’ It’s about, ‘I want my boss to know that I’m a tough business person and I know my shit.’”

Also rest assured this approach works. Gallop – who frames this advice with way more swearing and sass than I have here so I heartily recommend a visit to her @AskCindyGallop bot – cites research that 75% of people that ask for raises get some kind of pay bump, even if it’s not all the way to the level your research has shown would be right. And if your request is flat out denied, with no room for manoeuvre in other benefit areas like holiday or pension, then it’s time to think about whether or not you want to stay in a place where your sense of your value is not well matched by your employer. Because you can be sure that those love-refusenik supermarkets aren’t going to want to negotiate on the compensation they deserve for your next dinner.

Anna

Anna Higgs is Head of Entertainment at Facebook. If you have a question for Anna, please send your problem via Twitter or Facebook, or if you would prefer to email, send it to [email protected]