Slashdot Mirror
Reddit CEO Ellen Pao Bans Salary Negotiations To Equalize Pay For Men, Women
sabri points out that Reddit CEO Ellen Pao plans to ban salary negotiations in an attempt to equalize pay for men and women. "After losing a sex-discrimination lawsuit in Silicon Valley last week, Ellen Pao continues on her crusade to bring gender equality to the tech world, but this time with a focus on her home turf. As Reddit’s interim CEO, Pao said she wants to eliminate salary negotiations from the company’s hiring process. In her first interview since the lawsuit, Pao told with the Wall Street Journal Monday that the plan would help level the playing field. 'Men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalized when they do negotiate,' she said. 'So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation.'"
Penalising better negotiators is hardly a good thing regardless if it's trying to promote equality. Really all they're doing is saving money.
"Men negotiate harder than women do"
Let's punish people who are good at something! Diversity!
I thought she was a little off, because of her battle with her previous employer. But this is ridiculous. According to the WSJ, she is personally vetting potential candidates for their attitudes on diversity, and if a candidate says "I am not concerned about diversity" or "I don't consider diversity important" then they don't get hired. And now this salary non-negotiation thing. No one of any value is going to interview there.
I suppose the ones who are already there are safe because if she starts firing, say, white men, she's going to eventually have a nasty lawsuit to deal with. But I know her type. She probably won't fire anyone; she'll just harass and hound them into quitting.
I can't believe Reddit wants this person as their CEO; she's going to destroy the company.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Because you should know what they are offering beforehand, otherwise why go? You are paid for your ability to work, probably at a technically challenging job, not for your skill at negotiation and self marketing. If you have more skill go for a better job or try for a "senior" version of the same post but dont expect better pay for the same work.
In more specific terms it is a known and measurable effect that men who push and demand more are praised as go getting or leader types and women making the same moves are called names, bossy at best, and penalised for asking. So women learn not to push because others punish them for it, not because of any real difference in temperament or talent.
This reminds me of a policy that was caused the closure of Computer Science labs between 2AM and 6AM. The justification went something like this;
There are women who are afraid to be on campus late at night and therefore will not access the computer labs during that time. If men have access to the labs at that time they will have an unfair advantage in completing their work. Therefore to keep access equal the labs will be closed
It lasted about two months until they got security cameras in the labs. I think that was a face saving thing as many women on campus were upset about the closure too. This is the same faculty that shut off the phones in the labs because they could be used to make long distance calls (with some work). They forgot that those same phones could be used to call security if needed. This whole idea of making everyone equally bad is just stupid.
The gender wage gap is a myth. When you control for all the extraneous variables, men and women are paid the same. The reality is that men are paid more because they are willing to take uglier, riskier jobs, move longer distances for them, work longer hours, have more experience and qualifications in occupations with stronger demand, are willing to demand higher salaries, and are less likely to leave their career tracks for family obligations. Sorry to burst your politically correct bubble.
http://www.amazon.ca/Why-Earn-More-Warren-Farrell/dp/0814472109/
The wage-gap argument doesn't even make sense. Just imagine if a company could get the same productivity out of women and pay them 30% less. It would have an enormous competitive advantage over every other company in its industry and all the companies would quickly be forced to either hire all women themselves or go out of business, not because of any misguided government interference, but purely because of overwhelming free-market forces. The same argument applies for women in the boardroom. If they gave a company a distinct competitive advantage, every company would already be forced by the market to have lots of them.
Is this because woman are unable to negotiate as hard? Because they are unwilling to? Because they are too stupid to? What is her explanation? Is it hormonal? Does it have to do with having different body mass distribution? Inquiring minds want to know.
If it's to their advantage to negotiate hard and men and women are indistinguishable professionally, women obviously are just as able to negotiate hard (and, given negotiations I've been in, I have no reason to doubt they are not just as capable at this art).
Pao is really insulting women by saying this.
This really opens a Pandora's box. If she thinks women, by virtue of being female, are not as good at this important aspect of professional life, one wonders what other parts of their professional lives women are not as good at. She should give us a complete list - who knows what might be on it.
I wonder what would happen if she ran a purchasing organization or a sales organization. Usually the willingness and capability to negotiate effectively (and, therefore, hard) are basic job requirements for these positions. Would she refuse to hire women because, as she has stated, they are not as good at negotiating hard (ouch, there's a sexual discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen)? Would she refuse to negotiate salary and lose the very people who would negotiate effectively on behalf of her company? In reality, negotiation is always a part of almost any senior job -- you have to negotiate for headcount, resources, approval for projects, even convincing a customer that they don't need something is "negotiating".
Perhaps she has realized that she (the individual, not the gender) is not good at negotiating and this is a convenient way to avoid acknowledging this reality.
Perhaps she doesn't realize that no party to a successful negotiation goes away unhappy - does she lack confidence in herself and her own staff being able to negotiate successfully?
If Reddit has a candidate they really want and offers them $180K and they get an offer from another company for $200K (assuming similar fringe benefits and option valuations), how is it good for the company to walk away from the candidate instead of negotiate? Both $180K and $200K may be "fair" offers. Just because her company didn't happen to guess precisely what the FMV was for the person will she really stubbornly refuse to negotiate and start over from ground zero in trying to fill the position (which will likely cost tens of thousands of dollars in staff time and more tens of thousands of dollars in delay in filling the opening)?
I also assume that if the board offers, unwisely, to keep her on as permanent CEO and she wants a better offer than they gave her, she will understand when she when the board says "sorry, we don't negotiate and since you don't appear happy with our offer and we want a CEO who is happy with their situation, we retract the offer -- don't let the door hit your ass on the way out".
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
When was the last time you didn't negotiate prices on a house or car? And which is selecting an employer more like, buying you milk and bread for the week or a major purchasing decision?