We all know about Satya Nadella’s goof-up at a tech conference when he was asked what advice he’d offer women who feel hesitant in negotiating salaries and salary increments.”
His comments about “Karma” and “letting the system take over” did not sell well with anyone and he later apologized.
Watch this video:
Question: What would have been your answer if you were in Satya’s place?
I hope we can get lots of responses and make this a lesson to learn from!
A ‘great’ answer (Asha the editor will decide) will win an exclusive Rodinhood Tee!
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asha chaudhry
thank you for posting this one alok!!
it is a very very important HR aspect and every startup founder needs to give some serious thought to this.
after we get responses i would urge you to also write your advice (as a CEO and as someone who encourages women to stand on their own feet!)
Anil
The question shouldn’t be how women in specific should negotiate the appraisal. It should be how do we ensure equal pay for equal work for men and women, backed with the facts that there is a gap. In my 9 years of career i have seen both male and female colleagues going through similar doubts of how to negotiate for a raise.
When a large part of HR teams in IT companies and others largely formed by and often lead by women, including companies like Microsoft, women can easily raise and highlight differences in pay scale and appraisal between the two genders. Also, with the kind of work that employees do in the IT industry, it is not as easy to decide appraisal and impact between two employees. Not like a production line where you can compare the number of finished good by two employees and decide wages. Injustice can happen to any gender varying from case to case and company to company. The problem is that nobody today is talking about what is the average pay scale difference between men and women working in IT and solving it then.
So essentially the question should be how do we address if there is a problem, not simply how does a specific gender negotiates the appraisal – which is a challenge which every employee in different stages in their career faces.
Amitabha Saha Roy
For a moment, let me take Mr Nadella’s hot seat and attempt a response :
As a CEO of one of the largest companies in the industry, let me start by admitting that gender equality and pay is an issue in our industry. There is a lot of history that we cannot change, but I am committed to change the future . I am committed to make Microsoft one of the best places for Women to work and a big part of addressing that is to make sure that women get paid fairly and at par with their male counterparts at all levels.
Towards this initiative, I have asked my HR to benchmark pay at all levels and compare it with the average pay that our women employees get at each of the levels. Our target it to reduce this gap to zero in a period of the next 18 months. The next time, I give an interview with you, I would like to proudly say backed with solid data and facts that at Microsoft, Women employees are paid at par at every single level.
Aditya Singh
First thought is that – why should this be a gender issue at all. Market forces decide the value of talent for both genders and if someone feels that they are worth more than what they are perceived, they should be more assertive.I think not being assertive is not okay for yourself.
Moreover, the question she asked had certain assumptions and was coming from somewhere. Quoting from a feminist blog –
So i assume this is only about America because Indian stats are completely different and hence have to be taken differently. We have a poor gender ratio (many times poorer than america) in almost all of our elite engineering and management institutions. And since we are talking about startups and tech companies, those ratios become even more important. If there is an income disparity here, its not surprising.
In another case, Paul Graham (who was also under attack by feminists) for saying = “God knows what you would do to get 13 year old girls interested in computers”. And the feminists would say “did he mean women are less talented than men”. That is bad logic. Blaming VCs for not funding women. That is like questioning capitalism and our ideas of rational self-interest. That is like claiming that you are better at identifying tech talent as compared to Paul Graham.
If it is a social problem, it has to be fixed by the society in general.
Karan Ahuja
Women must change their mindset about asking for a raise.
Women are great at getting out good discounts, best prices while shopping for stuff.They can start imagining that they are in a similar situation and can start haggling for a raise at work as well :)While doing so they can link their efforts to ultimate business goals of the company.
Surely Good companies will need to create fair performance based salary packages to reduce attrition and execute better in the long run.
Lakshminarayanan
If I were Nadella this is what I would have said:
“You don’t get what you deserve. You get only what you negotiate. If you think you are worth more, go ahead and negotiate; negotiate hard. Be assured that gender finds no place in the salary formula at Microsoft.
This kind of a reply would have shouted out his commitment to gender equality very loudly. His apology and assurance of affirmative action sound more like the reservation policy back home.
Nilesh Gamit
“Promotions and rewards must be strictly based on contribution a person make to achieve organizational goals. Gender discrimination should NOT be there. If a woman having work experience of 10 years, is more effective and trustworthy than a man having same work experience, she should be getting more promotions and more rewards than him. It’s management’s job to identify the right person.
If an employee thinks that he/she is not getting paid well and wants to negotiate salary and salary increments, he/she should be stating their expectations clearly at time of joining or at time of appraisal. Management has rights to agree or disagree. Same time an employee has right to switch the job if he/she disagrees with what is being offered.
I’ve came across many cases, where an employee thinks that he/she is contributing more than what he/she should be and in return, he/she is getting less rewards than what he/she deserves. But in reality, his/her contribution is not up to the mark and not helping much to achieve organizational goals. Many employees have wrong mindset that they should be getting increment every 6 months / every year. In fact, if an employee is not performing well, management has the right to decrease the salary, demote a person or layoff him/her any time after giving sufficient warnings and necessary pointers. So, if an employee (male or female) wants to negotiate, go ahead and do it without fear, but make sure your contributions are worth mentioning, else trust the management’s decisions.”
Rachel Gojer
In Nadella’s place my response would be :
” There are two ways I look at this:
One, why are women hesitating to ask; is it because they feel the system will not listen or because they feel they should not have to ask and the system should understand. If it is the former, I assure you that at Microsoft that will not happen. We will listen and all compensation decisions will be on competency and not gender. If it is the later then I think women need to take the step and not expect that. In an ideal world the system will understand but till we get there we need to shake the system and ask for what is due.
The second thing I want women to do is to think of themselves as a business asset or a business deal. Would you allow a customer to pay you less and competitor more for the same product or service? If you would not short sell your company why short sell yourself? Dont accept less than what is due to you”