Asking for a raise is different for women of color.
In her book, Women Don’t Ask, Linda Babcock revealed only about 7 percent of women attempted to negotiate their first salary, while 57 percent of men did. It gets worse.
Black women are paid 38 percent less than white men and 21 percent less than white women, according to a study by SurveyMonkey and LeanIn.org in partnership with the National Urban League.
Over the course of a typical career, this amounts to nearly $870,000 in lost wages.
If this makes you angry, upset, or confused, then this article is for you.
How to Prepare to Ask for Your Raise
Before you ask, you'll want to prepare yourself. Here's the process I find to be the most successful.
STEP 1: Change Your Perspective of Who Holds Your Value
Let's be honest.
As women of color, we have been programmed to devalue our talents.
The origin varies on why, but the bottom line is, we are taught to be grateful for any and every opportunity we have. It doesn’t matter if we earned the opportunity. It doesn’t matter how hard we’ve worked to get the opportunity. At the end of the day, we are to be grateful for any and every opportunity and that is the thinking that has to change.
First, you have to get past the point of thinking that you are indebted to people for providing you with opportunities that you have earned based on your vast years of education and experience. There is nothing wrong with being grateful and expressing gratitude but there is something wrong with not requiring you to receive your value and leaving when you don’t.
According to Lean In, even in instances where Black women hold more advanced degrees, they earn less money than their counterparts. And Black women are less likely to receive the support and access needed to advance their careers.
Asking for a raise is about asking a company to compensate you for what you have contributed to their institution. You have to shift your mindset to ask for what you have earned. You worked hard for your company. You put in the labor. Labor needs to be compensated, and you have earned the right to ask for more compensation based on your labor.
There is a toxic mind frame that a company holds value on what we are worthy of. They don't. Only you hold that value.
Do you see the difference? Deserve=worth. Earn=compensation for labor.
You hold your value.
STEP 2: Get Your Receipts
Before you begin to have your conversation, you need to make sure your ducks are in a row. What ultimately prepares you for the conversation about a raise is data. Data is king! Data eliminates feelings and emotions, and it shows facts.
While you are working in your role, you should be keeping a weekly ledger of the value you are contributing. The list doesn’t have to be a long, drawn out document; it can be a bulleted list you create to keep track of what you have contributed to the company. If you haven’t been keeping a list, simply refer back to your calendar and start from there.
As you continue to contribute to your weekly list, at the end of each quarter you will be able to see your contributions and show the progression of your work and ultimately how you have positively contributed to your company.
As you are preparing for your conversation about your raise, use your notes to create the bigger picture of your overall contribution for the entire year (e.g., "this year I increased sales to 30%" or "over the last year, I increased youth retention by 25%"). Whatever your industry, make sure you align your value with the bottom line of the company as well as how you positively impact the culture of the company.
You also want to conduct your own research, so you have a baseline for what is an appropriate salary range in your industry. Here are a few questions to help with your research:
- What are the salary trends?
- What is the average salary for your role?
- Does the job description align with your experience (i.e., do you have more or less experience for the role)?
- What’s the company’s average percentage raise?
STEP 3: Make the Ask
The ask matters. According to Stanford professor Margaret A. Neale, “if you get a $100,000 salary and your co-worker negotiates up to $107,000, assuming you’re treated identically from then on, with the same raises and promotions, you’d have to work eight years longer to be as wealthy as them at retirement.”
Do you see the impact? You HAVE to ask.
Asking for a Raise: The Conversation
Here are some tips to help you structure your conversation:
Apply Your Research
Use the data. Think about what you have been contributing as well as the salary research you conducted for your salary increase conversation. Without it, your conversation is not based on facts, and companies can push back because you didn’t spell out your value.
Negotiate
If your manager tells you that the budget is tight or they push a percentage across the table that you know is lower than what you have earned (not deserve—you worked hard so you’re getting paid for it), push another number across the table and make the ask. Make sure to incorporate what you researched. Be prepared to negotiate.
For example, if they offer you a 3% raise (which is the annual standard of living increase—so essentially, it’s not a raise it’s just to account for inflation) and they haven’t included a merit increase even though you researched that at your experience level, your increase should be 10%, ask for it. And make sure you ask for 13%.
A rule of thumb is to ask for more than what you want so that if they say it’s too high, you can meet in the middle and get close to the number you want.
If you’re feeling nervous about asking, remember only one of three things can happen: (1) they give you what you asked for, (2) they compromise and give you something in the middle (which is still a win since it’s higher than the original offer), or (3) they are firm and don’t budge.
If they are firm, there are still plenty of ways for you to bargain! Here is a list of things you can ask for even if they say no to the percentage increase:
- Additional paid time off
- Retention bonus
- Flexible work schedule
- Move up your annual review to six months with the opportunity for a promotion
- Professional development budget
If they are not budging on anything during this process, then you need to ask yourself if this is the right company for you. If your company is not showing how they value your talent, is it even a place you want to be?
Accept the Offer in Writing
If you couldn’t come to an agreement in your original meeting, schedule additional meetings before you sign anything. After you reach an agreement, make sure everything you discussed is in writing (and congratulations you did that!).
Finally, after you've gotten an agreement, make sure that you continue to show and prove your value — illustrate your value day in and day out.
For more career tips and career advice tune in to my weekly podcast Career Gems.
