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Men and women are still treated unequally in the workplace. Women go along to earn less, on boilerplate, for the same performance, and they remain underrepresented in pinnacle jobs. Research has shown that both conscious and subconscious biases contribute to this problem. But we've discovered another, subtler source of inequality: Women often don't get what they want and deserve because they don't ask for information technology. In three separate studies, nosotros found that men are more likely than women to negotiate for what they want. This can exist costly for companies—and information technology requires management intervention.

The showtime study institute that the starting salaries of male MBAs who had recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon were 7.6%, or almost $four,000, higher on boilerplate than those of female MBAs from the same program. That'southward considering nigh of the women had simply accepted the employer'due south initial salary offer; in fact, but vii% had attempted to negotiate. But 57% of their male person counterparts—or viii times every bit many men as women—had asked for more.

Another study tested this gender difference in the lab. Subjects were told that they would be observed playing a word game and that they would be paid between $3 and $x for playing. After each discipline completed the task, an experimenter thanked the participant and said, "Here'due south $3. Is $3 OK?" For the men, it was not OK, and they said so. Their requests for more money exceeded the women's by nine to one.

The largest of the three studies surveyed several hundred people over the Cyberspace, asking respondents about the most recent negotiations they'd attempted or initiated and when they expected to negotiate next. The study showed that men place themselves in negotiation situations more often than women exercise and regard more than of their interactions as potential negotiations. (Encounter the exhibit "Can Nosotros Talk?")

Can We Talk?

Getting What Yous Settle For

Women are less likely than men to negotiate for themselves for several reasons. Commencement, they ofttimes are socialized from an early age non to promote their own interests and to focus instead on the needs of others. The messages girls receive—from parents, teachers, other children, the media, and gild in general—can be so powerful that when they grow up they may non realize that they've internalized this beliefs, or they may realize it merely not understand how information technology affects their willingness to negotiate. Women tend to assume that they volition be recognized and rewarded for working hard and doing a skillful job. Dissimilar men, they haven't been taught that they can ask for more than.

2d, many companies' cultures penalize women when they do enquire—farther discouraging them from doing and so. Women who assertively pursue their own ambitions and promote their own interests may be labeled as dyspeptic or pushy. They frequently see their piece of work devalued and notice themselves ostracized or excluded from admission to important data. These responses from women'south colleagues and supervisors may not be witting or function of any concerted endeavor to "hold women back." More typically, they're a production of society'due south ingrained expectations about how women should act.

Every bit a result, women in business often watch their male colleagues pull ahead, receive better assignments, get promoted more chop-chop, and earn more money. Observing these inequities, women become disenchanted with their employers. When a ameliorate offer comes forth, rather than using that offer every bit a negotiating tool, women may take it and quit. This happens even in organizations that make concerted efforts to treat women fairly. Managers who believe (rightly) that an of import part of their job is to keep their employees happy may requite women smaller pieces of the pie simply considering they give their employees what they enquire for. They practise non realize that the men are asking for a lot more than the women are.

When a better offering comes along, women may take information technology and quit rather than using it as a negotiating tool.

Making the World Negotiable

Managers need to face up this trouble. At the individual level, they tin mentor the women they supervise, advising them on the benefits (and the necessity) of asking for what they need to do their jobs effectively and fulfill their professional goals. Managers too tin can brand sure that women sympathize how many aspects of their working lives can exist negotiated. This tin can finer compensate for women'south more limited access to many of the professional and social networks in which men learn these lessons. Our studies institute that women respond immediately and powerfully to advising and chop-chop begin to encounter the globe every bit a much more than negotiable place.

  • Tell women employees they must ask for what they desire and need.
  • Inform female reports most the benefits of negotiating.
  • Give men and women comparable raises for comparable achievement.
  • Recognize that many women take a style that'southward less assertive than men'due south—and don't leave them out considering of it.
  • Monitor their own track record for advancing female person employees.
  • Walk the talk: Create a workplace in which men and women are rewarded equally.

Managers also should pay attention to the different rates at which men and women ask for advantages and opportunities. For example, managers shouldn't assume that the person requesting an assignment (oftentimes a male) wants information technology the most—and therefore will be the most motivated and exercise the best job. Proficient managers should realize that an equally qualified woman might exist just as interested and motivated.

Similarly, when a man asks for a raise and a adult female doing comparable piece of work does non, a good manager should consider giving both, or neither, of them raises. That way, the managing director can help to ensure that the visitor is treating its employees deservedly and forbid the adult female from becoming disillusioned if she later discovers a pay difference.

Managers tin can too develop detailed and transparent systems to evaluate whether they're doling out opportunities and rewards to all employees based on skills and merit, rather than on who asks and who doesn't. Incentives for managers themselves don't hurt, either: They should be measured on how all of their reports are advancing.

Finally, managers should drive larger scale cultural change. Throughout whatever organization, undoubtedly, people respond in different ways to the same behavior in men and women—beliefs that in a human being might be called believing or principled in a adult female might be considered overbearing or strident, for example. By finding ways to examine different responses, leaders tin open optics to subconscious barriers and create an atmosphere in which women and men tin can ask—and receive—equally.

A version of this commodity appeared in the October 2003 upshot of Harvard Business concern Review.