The Secret Salary

"As long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed."

---George Orwell (From: 1984)

Recently, I was meeting with someone about her plans to negotiate her salary with her employer. Claudia was a little upset because her current salary was about 15% lower than what the 'market' was paying; and like everyone else, she wanted to at least be in the norm of the range.

After studying how to handle salary negotiations properly, Claudia began her quest of normalizing her salary by speaking with her supervisor. As is the case 99% of the time, his rejoinder was, "We pay everyone based on strict HR pay scales and grade levels based on seniority. There's not much I can do because if one person doesn't go along with the grade levels, then it throws off the entire pay structure."

Sound familiar?

This song and dance has become popular with managers around the globe because of the increase of websites like salary.com and payscale.com. Why? Because as George Orwell mentioned, having exclusive information and cultivating an environment that is not conducive to salary comparison is what has helped companies save trillions of dollars on lower wages. All because we as employees didn't know any better. We had no way of knowing if we were making a 'market equitable' wage. Now, everyone has access to what the 'going rate' is for any job in any industry. Most sites are free, but some will provide very thorough and detailed data for a fee.

Its these "exclusive" salary survey sites that give HR departments their leg to stand on when they find themselves in a salary negotiation situation. For example, when Claudia asked her HR department about the possibility of getting a 15% increase, they said, "According to our market research, the database we use tells us that your salary is exactly even with your peers around the country. We pay tens-of-thousands of dollars each quarter to have access to this database that is updated weekly by compensation executives from around the globe. Generic websites, like the ones you have access to don't have this information."

There you go, they found their TWO LINES OF DEFENSE against the dreaded "Can I have a raise?" question! The first, is to remind you that you still do not have a reliable source of information, thus you are really not 100% aware of just how oppressed you are. Second, you can't expect to alter your wages, lest the balance of the entire compensation structure be destroyed!

But don't despair! You can and should do a little market analysis of your own. Survey your peers and colleagues. If they are close to you, they will tell you how much they make, almost down to the penny. If they are strangers, just ask for a range but keep the range within a $10K limit.

In my humble opinion, this is the most effective information source. Think about it, managers and HR departments try to keep us from discussing our salaries with other employees for a reason-- they know that the greatest strength you have in any salary arbitration is when you can PROVE that your salary is lower than others of the same level in your same company (this is ideal) or with another company in the same city.

If you find that someone in your company, who has the same level of education, same job title, same level of seniority, etc but earns $20K more than you do, just imagine what that does to the argument about how "our compensation grade levels are based on years of exclusive data research and the salary structure is solid and cannot be altered." It blows that argument out of the water and gives you power to make things right.

This is what happened with Claudia. She met with folks within her company and many of her colleagues confided in her. She found that employees with the same amount of education and experience earned $15K more than she did! There were others who worked for Claudia's company but were located in other cities, who made as much as $25K more! After she figured out cost of living adjustments, it was still equivalent to $19K.

Claudia was careful to document everything she learned. She promised to keep the names of her colleagues anonymous because many were afraid that HR might realize they are being paid too much, and would lower or cut their wages! Once she had data for 15 people, she drafted a chart that displayed the great disparity in the wages, benefits and titles WITHIN her own company.

She took this problem to HR and presented it to the Compensation Manager. She told him that this must have been an 'oversight' on his part and she was sure he wouldn't want this kind of glaring problem tarnishing his 'solid comp structure'. Claudia told me that the look on his face was one of disbelief. He wanted to do some research and get back to her, which, she allowed.

One week later, Claudia got a phone call from her supervisor. He informed her that she had been given a 15% raise and the managers within her company who supervise employees who have a similar title to Claudia's were informed that they must adhere to the salary policies HR mandates.

In this case, Claudia fought "knowledge oppression" to fix what was wrong. It took her 3 months to do it, but it was well worth the fight. So, I have only one question to ask you: HOW THOROUGH & UP TO DATE ARE YOUR STANDARDS OF COMPARISON?