Funding: Why money is missing when it comes to creating and sustaining female leaders in high tech

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com (New York City)

Part 1 of a 2 part series on “Why women should stay technical,” an introduction to our upcoming event Women in IT: Staying Technical and Getting to the Top, held in conjunction with Goldman Sachs and Accenture.

Recently, the New York Times reported on the lack of access to funding for women playing in the start-up environment of Silicon Valley. The numbers reveal just how underrepresented both professional executive women and female entrepreneurs are, citing that women account for just 6% of CEOs of the 100 top tech companies. Women create only 8% of venture capital money to fund tech companies – despite women owned businesses providing 40% of the US’s company revenues. In fact, in 2009, Techcrunch’s The Funded list included only one woman.

Why are the numbers so low? Well, it seems to be a function of critical mass (or rather the lack of it). The same dynamics keeping women out of the boardroom explain why women are not as easily funded in their businesses.

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Whose Responsibility is Fixing the Wage Gap?

iStock_000006916716XSmallBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

The wage gap between men and women is still running strong – 23 cents strong, according last year’s U.S. Census Bureau report. In fact, a new study conducted by Forbes leads women to believe that a little change in their actions could assist them in improving their chances at better pay. But it begs the question: is the wage gap our responsibility to fix?

According to the study, women can increase their pay by better managing their relationships with their bosses, peers, and subordinates. This conclusion was reached after surveying 315 white-collar professionals recently enrolled in the M.B.A. program at the Villanova School of Business and another undisclosed school. Information concerning the participants’ pay histories and job relationships was analyzed to look for correlations between change in pay and types of network relationships. Three specific types of networks were singled out to see which was the most influential in increasing compensation: subordinate networks (relationships with those working below an employee), peer networks, and networks with superiors.

The study was intended to offer insight to both men and women, as both sexes were also used for the findings, but little insight was actually given to women. Rather, common knowledge was simply reiterated. At The Glass Hammer we’ve discussed the importance of networking effectively at length. Forbes’ assertion that women’s corporate networks are significantly less effective than men’s wasn’t a major revelation. What was rather shocking, however, was the study’s claim that this fact alone suggests that “women have a bigger opportunity to increase their pay and close the wage gap by taking specific actions to understand and cultivate their relationships with supervisors, peers and subordinates.”

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Showing Support for Equal Pay Day

equal payBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

A few weeks ago, The Glass Hammer shed some light on the Paycheck Fairness Act by speaking to the AAUW‘s passionate Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, Lisa Maatz, as well as labor and employment law attorney, Counsel Dena Calo of Genova, Burns & Vernoia. The Paycheck Fairness Act would essentially act as a much-needed update to the nearly 47-year-old Equal Pay Act and would create stronger incentives for employers to follow the law, empower women to negotiate for equal pay, and strengthen federal outreach, education, and enforcement efforts. If passed, the legislation would also deter wage discrimination by strengthening penalties for equal pay violations and by prohibiting retaliation against workers who ask about employers’ wage practices or disclose their own wages.

On March 11, 2010 the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing on the Paycheck Fairness Act. According to Maatz, who attended the hearing, some who testified on the Republican side deemed the act unnecessary because of the already-existing Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which now enables employees to challenge any discriminatory paycheck they receive. Maatz says that President Barack Obama’s signing of this important Act is a step in the right direction for women in the workforce. But recent statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau perfectly illustrate the real problem and the reason why organizations like AAUW are fighting to get the Paycheck Fairness Act passed: The wage gap. In 2010, the average woman continues to make just 77 cents for every dollar made by her male counterpart.

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Where’s My Yacht? Conceptualizing the Wage Gap

yachtBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

According to a recent article in The Glass Hammer, and numerous recent studies, women make, on average, about 76 – 80 cents on the dollar compared to men. But what does this mean over the course of a lifetime?

Luckily, Women are Getting Even (WAGE), a nonprofit organization based in the United States and led by Evelyn F. Murphy, author of Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men and What To Do About It and Annie Houle, National Director of Campus and Community Initiatives, has done the math for us. According to WAGE, over the course of a lifetime, a female high school graduate will lose about $700,000. A female college graduate will lose $1.2 million. And a female professional school graduate will lose $2 million dollars, because of underlying assumptions and outright discrimination based on gender.

These dollar amounts certainly help us conceptualize the cost of gender discrimination in the workplace. But wouldn’t more concrete examples better illustrate the cost of today’s wage gap? Or better yet, what could you purchase with those lost dollars?

Yes, of course. The best things in life are free: a loving family, a fulfilling life, having the last laugh, etc. But let us indulge our materialistic sides, though, for just a bit.

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Mind the Gap: How to Increase Your Salary

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By Elizabeth Harrin (London)Photo of a young business woman holding currency notes and smili

If you’ve been following the release of various studies into the gender pay gap, you might be wondering what you can personally do to increase your chances of not falling into the chasm between men and women’s pay. In this difficult economic climate – although there are some small signs that things are looking up – can you really get a pay rise?

“It is far easier to fix your own situation on a one-on-one basis than to lead a revolution on behalf of woman everywhere,” says Cy Wakeman, HR expert and President of Cy Wakeman, Inc. “If each woman would step up on an individual basis – the issue would be fixed and we wouldn’t need mandates, audits and programs.”

Not everyone would agree that it’s that easy. You can’t just walk into your boss’s office and demand more money. Well, you could, but you wouldn’t get very far. It’s also difficult to work out how to pitch your request, as ‘John earns more than me’ is unlikely to win you many points in the argument, even if that is your primary reason for wanting to approach the topic of salary increase. Your employer’s first reaction is liable to be ‘How did you find out?’, especially as many companies make use of gagging clauses in contracts – or at the very least make a special point of telling employees not to share salary and bonus data when it comes to pay review time. Therefore it is worth putting together a case for why you deserve a rise, particularly if your compensation package – or lack of it – is a major concern for you at work.

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The London Paper’s City Girl Weighs in on Banker Bonus Caps

by Barbara Stcherbatcheff, author of “Confessions of a City Girl” (Virgin Books)citygirl11

Since I revealed my identity as The London Paper’s “City Girl” on August 3rd, I have been besieged by media requests to share my opinion on what must be the year’s hottest City-related story: whether or not to cap banker bonuses. Politicians have this idea that, if they can remove the upside reaped by the financial masters of the universe, they can remove the downside they’re capable of digging as well. As a result, new ideas on pay structures, including deferrals, clawbacks, and even the elimination of guaranteed bonuses, are being tossed around to ensure City compensation practices are aligned with long-term financial stability.

These ideas, while well intentioned, are problematic in several ways. First and foremost, common sense tells us that the eradication of the City’s bonus culture seems about as likely as the eradication of futures or options. When I was a derivatives trader in the City, our year-end bonus was such an integral part of our lives, it became an obsession. I listened to my colleagues describe precisely how they would spend their bonuses on the finer things in life— champagne, sex, gadgets, or an endearing mixture of the three. Like most bankers, we aspired to make as much money as possible in the shortest period of time. And like most bankers, many of us actually did.
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Equal Pay Day, April 28th

fallingmoney.JPGby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Today is Equal Pay Day. The day, always a Tuesday in April, represents how much longer a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year. And even though President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in January, the work is not done. The Ledbetter Act reversed a Supreme Court ruling from 2007 so that women can file discrimination claims 180 days from their last discriminatory paycheck, not 180 days from their employer’s initial decision to pay them less. But women still earn, on average, only .78 cents for every dollar a man earns.

As we have previoiusly reported, there is more legislation pending designed to help fight the wage gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act is pending in the Senate. This legislation will, among other things, deter wage discrimination by prohibiting retaliation against workers who inquire about employers’ wage practices or disclose their own wages.

But can legislation really help close the wage gap? After all, The Equal Pay Act of 1963 made wage discrimination on the basis of sex illegal 46 years ago. And yet pay discrimination still occurs at alarming rates.

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Is Texting Good for Business?

iStock_000006561903XSmall_1_.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

More than one trillion text messages were carried on carriers’ networks in 2008—breaking down to more than 3.5 billion messages per day. That’s almost triple the number from 2007. Meanwhile, there was a reported 2.7 percent increase in labor productivity in the business sector from 2007 to 2008. Based on this data, one might be tempted to say that increased texting leads to increased productivity but it is just not that simple.

First, there is the impact of the interruptions. Based on research from Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California at Irvine, it takes 25 minutes for the average worker to return to a task after being interrupted. Couple that information with research from Basex, a knowledge management company, that says a typical worker gets 200 e-mails, dozens of instant messages, multiple phone calls (office phone and mobile phone), and several text messages daily. Basex tabulates the lost productivity from information overload at $650 billion a year. And then add in all the other factors involved in productivity including the number of hours worked, the size of the work force, and other advances in technology.

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Coffee is the New Lunch

iStock_000000854348XSmall_1_.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Bryant Park says pink is the new black and Wall Street says coffee is the new lunch. The New York Times recently ran an article about Hollywood and literary types who no longer fight to pick up the check at business lunches due to the struggling economy. So The Glass Hammer asked business women if their lunch habits were changing too.

We learned that a coffee meeting is indeed the preferred way of doing business. Lunches, although sometimes unavoidable, are viewed less favorably. While some business women use lunches to stand out from the crowd, we predict the coffee meeting will replace the business lunch as the power get together of 2009.

“Yes, the economy has affected my business meal practices. I’m scheduling more coffee/drink meetings. The lunches and breakfasts are few and far between,” says Gaea L. Honeycutt, President, G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC: Research and Communications Services. “I generally split the tab unless it’s a client I’m strongly courting. Most client meetings are scheduled over coffee or in their offices.”

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The Payday Puzzle

iStock_000002838991XSmall_1_.jpgby Jane Carruthers (London)

It’s the elephant in the room. You can have equal opportunity programs, gender equality task forces, women’s action groups and all the promises of equal pay for equal work enshrined in your Human Resources manuals, but none of it matters a jot if you don’t have clarity on whether you really are paid the same as your male counterparts.

Gender equality has long been the rallying cry for women seeking to reach their full potential in the workplace. What is sad is that in the struggle to achieve the roles and responsibilities they deserve, the crucial issue of pay is often sidelined.

The Glass Hammer has written long and passionately about professional women deserving equal pay for equal work: it isn’t a story that will go away any time soon. In Britain, nearly 40 years since the Equal Pay Act of 1970, women working full time across the UK still earn on average 17% less an hour than men working full time. It’s even worse in London, workplace for many of our UK readers – full time women will suffer a pay gap of 22.3%.

The part-time story is even worse. Women in part-time work in the UK are paid on average 36% less than part-time men, the figure rising to a staggering 45% in London.

The data from the US is just as discouraging, with women in full-time work earning a meagre 80 cents on the dollar compared to men in comparable positions.

The question is: why do we put up with it?

Fundamentally different approaches to asking for money is clearly an issue: we are told that a man will ask for a raise on the off-chance he might get it, whereas a woman expects that her efforts will be noticed – and rewarded – and will seldom go cap in hand to her manager demanding a pay hike.

In the UK, the situation is worsened by the attitude that women suing their employers for gender discrimination can be perceived as bounty hunters by the court system and the press. The fact that the courts are largely staffed (if not stuffed) with older white males is obviously not much help.

Anecdotally, I have come across several women who were discriminated against in terms of their pay. One particularly shocking case involved a woman at a global bulge-bracket bank who was forced to take legal action against her employers. She requested a Peer Remuneration Review and discovered that in spite of being top-ranked in her sector in external surveys, she was earning around less than half of the pay some of her male colleagues were taking home. Yes, you read that right – Less.Than.Half. And this was a bank busily professing its love of gender equality long and loud in its Employee Handbook.

While any employee can legitimately request a peer remuneration review, the reality is that you would be perceived as a troublemaker if you made one just to establish the pay ground rules. They’re usually deployed after the employment relationship has already broken down, trust is in tatters and you have to prove that you’ve been underpaid in order to proceed to court.

And employers can throw obstacles in your way if you do demand clarity on your pay – fudging the issue by comparators using who are junior to you, downgrading any successes you may have had or using questionable data such as call-rates to quantify your results (or lack thereof). You may also find that the much-loved (by HR) 360 Appraisal is invoked, and all of a sudden colleagues and managers have ‘issues’ with your performance. You will almost certainly be friendless in the office, as peers rush to disassociate themselves from you.

While all of this sounds too ‘doom and gloom’ for comfort, there are measures you can take to protect yourself and ensure that you are being fairly rewarded for your efforts. Here are some suggestions:

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