Microsoft CEO to his female staff: don't ask for a pay rise.

[DoctorTwo]

Satya Nadella says it's bad karma for women to ask for a pay rise. What an utter cock.

[Johnogroats]

He has apologised and done a total u turn. Quite right too. I am bad at asking for pay rises, as are many women. Hence the reason we are paid less.

[cailindana]

Jesus. And then he tried to backtrack saying he was "inarticulate," which basically means "I meant what I said, I just didn't use enough euphemisms to ensure no one could see the blatant sexism." At least he finally, eventually admitted he was wrong, but it had to be winkled out of him.

This is why I'm always wary of men giving women advice on how to "get ahead." Not only do men just not get what it's like to be a woman in the world's workplace, they also, always, have underlying sexist thinking that influences what they say. IMO standing a man up at a conference and having him spout sexist ideas but in a subtler more convincing way is actually much more damaging than the blatant sexism that's out there because intelligent women are more likely to swallow it and not identify the ways in which the advice given to them subtly differs from the advice given to men.

[PetulaGordino]

being bad at asking for pay rises is not the reason women are paid less

the retraction is a good thing in principle but it is too little too late. it's yet another contribution that reinforces the status quo. the damage is done

one of the twitter responses was good: ""I became CEO by not asking for a raise, but trusting karma and having faith in the system." - Said no CEO ever"

[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

Ouch. Wonder if anyone's got any male/female salary (and level) statistics for Microsoft? That would be interesting reading in light of this.

[cailindana]

What gets me is that even as general advice it's shit. "The system" is designed around keeping costs down so if an employee is willing to beaver away and never ask for more money, why would the system give them more money? In purely practical terms it's unnecessary expenditure. The only pay rises I've had have been through asking.

[Lottapianos]

What a total plum. 'Bad karma' indeed. Glad this has been taken seriously though. There's obviously been enough negative publicity around it that he had to the usual standard non-apology - pathetic I know, but at least it hasn't been swept under the carpet.

[PetulaGordino]

he can fuck off to the far side of fuck with his karma

women were all bad in a previous life were they, and that's why they deserve the inequalities of the present?

fuck. off.

[ErrolTheDragon]

If 'trusting the system' is such a great idea, surely its equally applicable to men?

[cailindana]

Of course not Errol. Men are the system, they have every right go challenge and control it. Women are interlopers and as such shouldn't be presumptuous, they should just work quietly until the system (aka a man) decides to reward them

[scallopsrgreat]

Dear god! The man is a nincompoop. How did he get to be CEO? Damn sure on that performance it wasn't through karma!

Can you imagine being his wife/partner? Poor woman!

One of the comment beneath the article starts "Not to sound bigoted and xenophobic but ..." You can imagine how the rest of it goes . Taking lessons from Nadella.

[FloraFox]

Sadly, having outrageous views about women in the workplace are no barriers to becoming a CEO. I'd wager the retraction had to be winkled out of him by the PR and HR people at Microsoft. But the damage is done. How does a woman at Microsoft ask for a raise if she is senior enough for the CEO to find out she did it?

[ErrolTheDragon]

It would be interesting if someone has the stats on male/female pay in microsoft now, and has another look in a few month's time - anyone think that there should be a surge of women asking for rises now? I do hope so ... that sounds like good karma to me.

[noddingoff]

And here was I thinking that business ran along the laws of supply and demand, maximising efficiency etc. Turns out that's rubbish - it's all about karma, dude. If karma was so effective, why is there still a pay gap, hmmm?

Here's Merryn Somerset Webb on the subject of trusting fairness in the system:
"My mother always told me life wasn't going to be fair. But for much of my childhood I wasn't convinced. It seemed to me that most of the time you got what you deserved. At school if you were nice to people they were generally nice back. If you worked hard you did well in exams and were praised accordingly. And if you didn't you weren't. It was the same at university: if you followed the rules and worked hard you got a good degree. If you didn't you didn't. Simple and perfectly fair.
Then I entered the world of work and found that my mother was completely right. In the office things aren't fair at all: working hard and being nice in no way guarantees you a fair wage. Instead, if you are a woman, it very often condemns you to an unfair one."
There follows the rest of the chapter about the pay gap, and an analysis of why the author thinks women are four times less likely to ask for a rise than men.
(The book is "Love is not enough" which I have recommended before on this board)

[FloraFox]

Great post noddingoff

[AskBasil]

"I am bad at asking for pay rises, as are many women. Hence the reason we are paid less."

Wrong. You might be bad at asking for pay rises, but lots of women aren't bad at it, they're actually very good at it. Because we're socialised to be empathetic, diplomatic and sensitive, we're actually incredibly good at putting forward a reasonable case as to why we deserve a pay rise with all the caveats about the needs of the business etc.

Unfortunately, our reasonable requests are often perceived through the prism of sexism, which means that they are defined as aggressive, ball-breaking uppity bitchiness. So the requests are refused.

When men and women stop seeing women's expectation that they will be valued in the workplace as misplaced arrogance, then we can start focusing on how women ask for pay rises. In the meantime, it's perfectly reasonable to focus on the real reason women don't get pay rises - pure sexism such as that displaced by this sorry CEO.

[shesawseashellsontheseashore]

Jesus wept...

I've deliberating between going back to a corporate job and continuing on the unconventional path I've been on the last year or so to potentially lead me into self employment. I think I will stick with the latter and if I had a daughter I would be tellng her to do the same or at the very least taking a good look at where the women sit within an organisation she is considering joining.

Dragon Peter Jones apparently got rid of an older receptionist recently and replaced her with two young dollies. Let's hope there is such a thing as karma after all.

[EBearhug]

I'm good at asking for a payrise. It's my manager putting the case across to his manager which is where it goes wrong. One of my male colleagues has said he's not going to bother again, because it's such hard work.

Unfortunately, I don't think Nadella's views are that unusual in IT, and the fact many companies don't disclose salaries without a fight doesn't make it easier. I know I'm more or less fairly paid compared with the industry average, but I've very little idea how I compare with my close colleagues, with whom I should be at least level, and in some cases ahead. So I keep on asking (and I'm also asking for a promotion currently,) and I will keep on asking until they give a good reason not to, which so far they haven't.

[PetulaGordino]

It's a really good point ebearhug that if as many people do you work in a large organisation your line manager is not the decision-maker when it comes to salary changes. In my company it goes through several layers of sign-off, way beyond where the individual requesting the change can influence (unless they are already very senior)

[PetulaGordino]

I was promoted last year but wasn't able to take the role until four months after being told I had been successful. This was because of machinations at the top of the organisation which meant that the change wasn't signed off for four months

[PetulaGordino]

it's ada lovelace day tomorrow, and here is a little infographic about women in tech jobs

blog.makersacademy.com/infographic-women-tech/?doing_wp_cron=1413198155.6910619735717773437500

[ErrolTheDragon]

Does anyone have the pay differerential for jobs overall/ skilled jobs in general available for comparison - I'm curious to know whether tech jobs are better/worse/much the same as others. One might (naively?) assume that tech jobs might have some possibility of objective performance metrics which might therefore lead to less discrepancy.... I'm not betting I'm actually right about that!

Is that '13% girls taking Comp. Sci gcses' that 13% of girls now take this subject, or that only 13% of com sci gcses are taken by girls? If the former, then would be good to know % of boys doing it.

[EBearhug]

It looks like the figures are from the new BCS publication on Women in IT, which I've only skimmed the intro of so far. It in turn links to the policy.bcs.org/content/women-it-scorecard-it-profession-numbers Women in IT Scorecard.