By Janette Ebbers, news staff
Representatives from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) presented a salary negotiation event Tuesday at Northeastern Crossing.
The seminar, led by Morgan Stanley advisors Denise Simpson and Nancy Allen, focused on practical strategies of salary negotiation for women and the challenges facin the often male-dominated workplace.
The training was part of Equal Pay Awareness Week, a week-long effort by AAUW and Mayor Martin J. Walsh to close the wage gap in Boston, according to a statement from Walshâs office.
âWe want to provide you tools to address [the wage gap],â Simpson said. âNo one wants to leave money on the table. This needs to be addressed for future generations.â
Allen and Simpson opened the presentation outlining the problem: Women earn less than men.
âBased on the national wage gap, it was determined that over a 40-year career, white women would lose $400,380 compared to their male counterparts,â Allen said. âThey both may have worked as much and as hard as each other, but youâre looking at almost a half a million dollar difference.â
For women of color, Simpson said the wage gap is even more worrisome.
âIt gets even more dire,â Simpson said. âFor an African-American woman, sheâll lose $877,480 over the course of that same career. A Latina woman will lose over $1 million. This is why weâre here.â
Allen and Simpson applied the gender gap statistics to real-life situations in the seminar
âYou need to think about a man and a woman coming out of college with the same degrees,â Allen said. âHow to they get to the place where theyâre making 54 percent of their male counterpart, 63 percent, 75 percent?â
Allen and Simpson laid out four steps for women to successfully navigate salary negotiation: Know your value, benchmark your salary and benefits, know your strategy and practice. Simpson said strategies such as seeking out âsalary checkpointsâ by constantly interviewing makes it easier for women to play at the same level as their male counterparts.
Allen said there are many social norms that give men a competitive advantage over women in the workplace.
âThey start networking as tiny kids, more so than the girls do,â Allen said. âSo, theyâre much more comfortable. When I was young, when I started my career, women just werenât doing it because there werenât many women in those fields.â
Simpson also said men typically have an easier time promoting themselves, something that can hamper women in both salary negotiations and interviews.
âIf you cannot articulate your value, how in the world is the person at the table across from you going to translate it and say, âOh, that person deserves this jobâ?â Simpson said.
Allen said women frequently worry more about the rigidity of their career decisions, especially when they are recent college graduates.
âIâm here to tell you your first decision will be an amazing decision,â Allen said. âIt will help you learn the tools of life, about the workplace, about what youâre doing, but itâs not something that is going to cement you into a profession youâll stay in for the rest of your life.â
Allen, who is on her third career, said mistakes and false starts can often help create self-confidence. Allen emphasized assertiveness as the metaphorical golden key for women in a competitive work environment.
âYou have all kinds of choices, and women today in the workplace have the world open to whatever they want to do,â Allen said. âYou have to find that self-confidence.â