Negotiation November: Negotiate – For Yourself, Your Family, Your Teammates

By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

According to Matt Wallaert of GetRaised, a site created to help women plan for and request a salary increase, one of the biggest obstacles women encounter when asking for a raise is just that, working up the nerve to actually ask.

“Confidence is a big issue, but it’s not the only one,” Wallaert said.

“We need women to perceive asking for a raise as less threatening. Many women have an easier time doing it when you explain that when they get a raise, it helps others: their kids, their family, and blazing that trail will also be good for other women. We need to remove the inhibiting pressures. When women go into a negotiation with facts and concrete information that will help their employer see their value, it takes away the fear associated with the response.”

Gender and Negotiation

Though women have more trouble asking, research reveals that gender is not a reliable predictor of negotiation performance; neither women nor men perform better or worse across all negotiations. Certain types of negotiation, however, set the stage for differences in outcomes negotiated by men and by women.

According to the study When Gender Changes the Negotiation:

“When parties understand little about the limits of the bargaining range and appropriate standards for agreement, the ambiguity of a negotiation increases. In highly ambiguous negotiations, it becomes more likely that gender triggers—situational cues that prompt male-female differences in preferences, expectations, and behaviors—will influence negotiation behavior and outcomes. By contrast, in situations with low ambiguity, where negotiators understand the range of possible payoffs and agree on standards for distributing value, outcomes are less likely to reflect gender triggers. Some environments are full of triggers that encourage superior performance by women, while others are full of triggers that encourage superior performance by men. Rather than indicating innate differences between men and women, these triggers reflect stereotypes and long-standing behavioral biases.”

One gender trigger that favors women is playing the role of agent (advocating for others), as opposed to playing the role of principal (advocating for themselves).

Research suggests that women perform better when negotiating on behalf of others than they do when negotiating for themselves. In the study, a large group of executives were asked to negotiate compensation for an internal candidate for a new management position.

Half negotiated as the candidate; the other half negotiated as the candidate’s mentor. Female executives negotiating as the mentor secured compensation that was 18 percent higher than the compensation female executives negotiated when they were playing the candidate.

Communicating Effectively

Learning how to advocate for themselves is still an issue many women struggle with. But by communicating appropriately, they can be more effective. That means the words “I want, I need, and I deserve” should never come into play.

“Those are emotional pleas for a raise and raises aren’t based on emotions, they’re based on data,” he explained. “Essentially, you need to walk into a negotiation very well informed. You have to know your market rate and you have to be able to say, ‘Because I’m doing x,y, and z, I deserve to get paid a.’”

If you are worth the raise you’re requesting and your employer still says no because of budget issues, Wallaert recommends setting your new salary for a future date and getting the agreement in writing.

If it’s not a budget issue and your boss still doesn’t agree to pay you your market value, you can a.) Leave or, or b.) Say, “If you don’t think I’m worth this amount, tell me what I can do to increase my value in the next six months?” Literally mark a date six months in advance on your calendar and during that time, do whatever you can to increase your value to the company. When the date arrives, you can re-enter negotiations knowing you did everything in your power to obtain the salary you should be receiving.

When entering a new position, women should be sure to establish a salary bottom line. Most have salary targets, but establishing a bottom line will make it easier to walk away from a position that doesn’t understand your value from the start, as opposed to trying to work your way up to the amount you should have begun at.