Why you should ask for your value:

At the beginning of fall, I decided to leave my finance rotation program to become a permanent project manager for my team. I’ve already worked two different finance roles and I feel like project management is a better fit for me. I believe I can continue to bring value to the Boeing Company with all the ongoing projects I’ve been working with. I also started my master’s program this fall and I haven’t given up blogging. With all my commitments in mind, I didn’t want to take on a whole new statement of work in finance.

My manager and I sent it the request for me to stay on as the project manager and the HR department and my rotational program approved it. I was told it was a lateral move so it was an easy transition and I signed on the dotted line when I was given the contract.

Fast forward to this past weekend –

I’m in the school library gearing up to launch the Close the Gap Campaign. And I’m realizing that the advice I’m about to share with you is what I should have done. I accepted my situation as final when everything (especially job changes and promotions) is negotiable. I should have asked for an increase in pay because of the value I’ve already brought to the team and the future work I’m going to do for the Boeing Company.

Instead I didn’t think to negotiate or even ask for my value.

And I checked our pay scale tables at Boeing and Glassdoor and I found out that I’m being paid 15% less a typical project manager with 3 years of experience should be making… So I’m going to have to work hard my next promotion to even make the average wage of a project manager in my level.

So from my personal learning experience, I encourage you and a friend to try this values exercise. And when you’re up for promotion or your next job change, you’ll have some practice in articulating your value.

Believe and Ask for your Value - Gender Pay Gap - Close the Gap

Do you believe you have value? Do you communicate your value?

Whether you’re a blogger or a project manager (or both), do you believe and communicate your value? As women, we’ve been conditioned to be grateful for the opportunities we receive and we’ve been conditioned to do things out of “love”. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does contribute to the gender pay gap. We are unsure of what we deserve because we are supposed to be grateful for the opportunities.

Additionally, most of us are raised that the world will be fair and recognize us for the hard work and commitment when the time comes. So many women believe that their work will speak for itself and that they will eventually be recognize for their hard work.(Source: Women Don’t Ask)

Casey Brown shares how women are afraid and don’t want to “toot their own horn”. But being able to accept and communicate the value we bring to the workplace and our customers are essential for not only our confidence in our careers, but also closing the gap.

Here is Casey Brown: Know your worth then ask for it

 

Whether you decide to meet for a coffee date, send in an email, or text back and forth, I invite you fill these questions out and share them with a friend. I specifically ask to share your answers with a friend so you get some practice speaking up about the value you bring.

Here are 4 questions Casey Brun presents to us in her Ted Talk.

Value (Reflection + Partner) Exercise:

  1. What is my unique skill set that makes me better qualified to serve my clients?
  2. What do I do that no one else does?
  3. What problems do I solve for clients?
  4. What value do I add?

If you decide to do this exercise with a friend, I would love to hear from you! You can comment or send me an email at emmasedition@emmasedition.com to let me know you’re going to try the exercise  🙂

ask for your value - gender pay gap

If you want more information on the Gender Pay Gap, read Day 1: The Gender Pay Gap is NOT a Myth and my original blog post explaining my grad school research project.

Thank you always for reading!

Love,

Emma