Jamie Lee  00:00
Welcome to risky conversations. Why? Because everything that's rewarding is on the other side of a risky conversation. My name is Jamie Lee, and I'm an executive coach and self advocacy coach for women. In today's podcast, we're going to talk about negotiating a pay raise after coming back from maternity leave, we're going to address why it can feel risky, what you can do to de risk your request for the salary increase, and the steps you can take to ensure that the risk you take in asking for the raise is most likely to be rewarded. I'll share a simple, easy to follow framework. I'm going to share scripts and a mindset shift to help you navigate this conversation. But first, can I be totally honest with you as a feminist who believes in the equality of all genders. As a feminist who believes that the female body is magical for its life creating and life giving powers, for me, the concept of a quote unquote fatherhood bonus and quote unquote motherhood penalty is befuddling, if not repugnant. It makes me sad. It makes me mad. Fatherhood bonus refers to the researched phenomena of fathers being rewarded with more pay and an increase in perceived leadership potential. Why does this happen? Well, it's because of millennia of patriarchal conditioning. It's because of unquestioned assumptions in our society that place a higher value on fatherhood than motherhood. I mean, think about the media. Think about the countless movies, TV shows, historical figures. I mean, most of our heroes, up until very, very recently, have been men, fathers, forefathers. So of course, our expectations are shaped by what we've been exposed to in the past, and we innocently absorb this bias. Forefathers against mothers that became unconscious over time. Think about it. How many times have we heard stories you know, either directly or indirectly, through the media of fathers who work hard, they're they're remote, but are reliable providers, and therefore they are good fathers. And how often do we hear critical stories of mothers? I mean, for me, I can distinctly hear the voice of some of my friends saying things like, Oh, how could she Oh, I can't stand my mother. Oh, my mother is the reason I'm so neurotic as a culture. And I'm speaking about Western culture, but also in developed Asian countries like South Korea, Japan, which I'm familiar with and I have lived in, we have this tendency to miss our fathers because they're so busy being a provider, being a good father at work, we long for their closeness and their approval. Mothers are, on the other hand, often criticized, nitpicked, blamed for being too much, too emotional, too demanding. In other words, never enough. That's in green sexism. I mean, I'm I'm putting me in the we here because I have had the thought, Oh, my God, my mother is too much. And I'm from a single parent family. I'm from a single mother home. I'll tell you more about that in a minute. But you know, to come back to my point, it's only been a few decades now, when you think about the total of human history, which is only what 20, 30,000 years like, it's only been a few decades now, we're only starting to see mothers as providers in our culture. Very, very recently, like I said, my mom, she was a single mom, and she was the first to provide. She was the first to work outside the home full time and provide single handedly for her three daughters. We're family of all women. And then I went to Smith College, which is also all women's college. So anyways, my mom, she was the first in her lineage of hundreds, if not 1000s, of her foremothers, of her ancestors. So my point being the inverse of the Fauci. Motherhood bonus or motherhood penalty is something that we encounter in our culture at large, and of course, in in the workplace. Of course we do because research, many data points, many reports, many news articles will you know, point to the fact that childless women tend to make more money, sometimes even more than fathers in certain industries. But that goes the opposite direction, and fathers are more rewarded, most highly rewarded at the very top end of the range, at the top of companies. In other words, mothers, in general, tend to be penalized. Now, the exception to that rule is that if you're at the very top of the income distribution for women, in other words, if you're a highly paid professional, if you're a high income earner, or you are at the top of your food chain, the organization and you can easily afford the help to make being a working mother a non issue for you. If you can hire a nanny, if you can hire babysitters, if you can, you know, get the help, then the motherhood penalty goes away. So the more privileged you are, the less penalty you have. But for most people, right and most people aren't earning at the top of the income distribution, for most women who aren't earning at the top of the income distribution, the motherhood penalty is even steeper. So that means if you're a mother, either for the first time, the second time, the third time, fourth time, however, many times. There's probably a part of you that has registered this bias. Maybe you've encountered it firsthand, maybe you've absorbed it through through time, through messaging, through socialization, and maybe you've even internalized the belief that fathers get to advance and mothers take a hit in the workplace, and that of course, of course, it would impact your negotiation confidence, and when you don't feel as confident, then of course, negotiating for what you Want can feel a lot more risky than it actually is. I'm thinking of a particular client I recently coached. Let's call her candy candy started the session by saying she's never been good at advocating for herself, and she's now returning to work after maternity leave, so her maternity leave is about to come to an end, and she feels like she does not know how to negotiate for herself. She says, I'm not good at it. I've never been good at it. And she says, I'm afraid there's not enough in the budget for her to earn more. But she also wants to negotiate, because she's the main breadwinner. You know, she was earning more than her husband, but now she's going to be providing for three for her family, and there is more on top of all that. She knows that she's going to be handling more work. She's going to be taking on more responsibilities because three of her colleagues left the company in the past year, and no one's been hired to replace them. Candy, my client handles client deliverables. She used to be responsible for about 25 client accounts, and now, when she goes back, she's going to be responsible for like 28 or more,

Jamie Lee  08:43
so she's gonna be doing more, right? But she still feels doubtful, unsure and nervous about negotiating, and so some things that are kind of obvious here is that she's obviously good at what she does. Otherwise she wouldn't be taking on more work, right? Obviously, she is desired back at work when she comes back from maternity leave, but she feels unsure. She doesn't feel ready, confident and comfortable to negotiate, and that's partly because she's never negotiated her pay before. So if you if you're doing something you've never done before, of course, it only makes sense that the first time feel a little awkward, a little nerve wracking, some nervous system activation is par for the course. That's why I always tell my clients who start advocating for themselves in a proactive way. If it feels awkward, you're doing it right. Don't let your nervous system activation mean that something has gone wrong. You're doing it right. Is your heart rate a little higher. You're doing it right. You know you feel a little anxious. Right, you're doing it right. You're not in the wrong at all. In addition, my client mentioned that she worries there's not enough in the budget. This is a worry that can come up if there's a part of us that worries we're not good enough, not deserving enough, not worthy enough, of bigger possibilities of receiving more, of there being more, right, whether that's financial abundance or in other ways. Now let's take a pause, and I want to take your hand and take you to imagination world. Imagination world with me, okay, come to imagination world. Imagine what my client's mindset and her and her readiness, her sense of being comfortable with this could be if instead of the motherhood penalty she internalized that mothers get rewarded and mothers are worth more, the very opposite of a motherhood penalty. Like imagine if she internalized a motherhood bonus. Imagine what that would feel like. Imagine the ease candy could have if she believed that because she's a mother, a person who has the power to create life, to give life and nurture it, imagine if she be like she believed that, because she's a mother, her bosses, her clients, her Colleagues, that people around her, the community, would want to reward her with more resources, with more money, with more respect. Imagine that we can go anywhere in our imagination world, it's free and unlimited. I'm I know I'm taking you to this feminist ideal, this feminist utopia, where all women, regardless of whether they choose to be a parent or not, are treated with the same deferential treatments fathers get at the very top. Just imagine that for a moment. Say that feminist utopia with me for a moment, and imagine the impact that would have on my client's confidence, even if it was lifted, even if she had 7.8% more confidence, right? Not even a full 10% just 7.8% more confidence. Imagine the conversations she might feel totally open to right with her boss, with the decision maker, with the owner, the CEO of her company, like imagine her taking these five simple steps. Number one, planning ahead, getting strategic planning ahead for the best time to advocate for herself. Number two, building a business case, not a personal one. Number three, presenting the math of her case. Number four, showcasing her wins. And number five, getting the Yes. So let me walk you step by step through these five steps. Number one, planning, planning ahead. You know, I have to say, I have to argue, the best time to ask for a pay raise probably is not right after she returns from maternity leave, right? She was like, Oh, I don't think it's the best time. I feel too nervous. I'm like, Yeah, you're probably right, but it's not the best time to ask for the pay raise. And probably the absolute best time to ask for a pay raise is before, is ahead of leaving for maternity leave, one of my clients did. This is not candy, so let's give her a different name. This is let's call her Tanya, a client that I will refer to as Tanya. She worked in the financial industry, and she worked with me through the month leading up to her maternity leave, and she and I, we built a self advocacy game plan, and she executed it step by step. She had informal and formal conversations with stakeholders, with people who can influence the decision, directly with her boss, as well as other people, and she got her boss's buy in, and she secured a commitment from her boss that she would be considered for a promotion to senior director before she went on maternity leave, she even i. Negotiate. She tried to negotiate her maternity leave, and she advocated for a better maternity leave, because it wasn't the ideal terms that the company offered her. She went on maternity leave, and her promotion and pay raise got announced while she was away. So that's possible. It's happened to my client, whom I'm calling Tanya. But if you're like candy, the other client I mentioned at the top of this podcast, and you decide to take action after you've taken maternity leave, that's okay. All is not lost. You may just want to be extra patient with yourself, extra kind, extra compassionate with yourself, and allow yourself to get re acclimated to your working schedule before you start making the ask, I would say, wait at least a couple of months, right? It just makes sense. Your body has been through this big life changing event. Your body has to re acclimate, your your your schedule, your you know, your day to day, right? Sometimes new mothers have to take time to pump milk during the day, or, you know, if they're working from home and if they're taking care of the baby at the same time, you got to, you know, adjust. You got to adjust your schedule so that you can do both things. And so I've never done this myself, so I can't speak for what it's like, but from a negotiation strategy perspective, I do believe it's best to wait a few months after you've gotten you know your bearings and you're comfortably getting your job done, as you know after returning from maternity leave, this way, you get to gather fresh examples of your contribution contributions. And also, if you give yourself a couple of months to re acclimate, you can also get very, very strategic. And you know, something that you can do is even think about timing your request so that it coincides with your company's financial planning cycles right now. I'm recording this in mid August, 2024 in two or three months. So in October or early November, many companies will go into their 2025 budget planning season. If you want to secure a promotion and pay raise in 2025 and your company is planning its budget like couple months ahead of that October, November of 2024 then you'd want to get the ear of a decision maker or your boss, or skip level boss before then. Right now, having said that, this is not a hard and fast rule, so don't worry if you're still a maternity leave and you're like, Oh no, I'm gonna miss the financial planning cycle. That's okay. The first thing, you gotta be patient. You gotta be kind to yourself, right? I think that's the very first thing.

Jamie Lee  18:23
You know, trying to coincide your ask with the financial planning cycle is something that you just want to be aware of, because asking for a raise and securing it is usually it takes, you know, several conversations. It can take a couple of months for people to, you know, like take your idea in and then have those conversations behind closed doors, you know, or make sure that it gets incorporated into the budget for the following year or the next cycle. So to recap, the best time to ask for a raise is when you're prepared, when you're ready, right? And for one of my client that was before going on maternity leave, and for some others, it's going to be after they've returned, after they've allowed themselves to be re acclimated and have demonstrated some impact. And it does help to think ahead, but it's not, it's not a absolute need, right? Because exceptions are made all the time for exceptional people and some companies are making changes to the budget on an as needed basis, right? Okay, so having said that, after you have planned ahead for the best time to ask, best time to negotiate, right, which is when you're. Ready, really. The second thing you want to do is build a business case, not a personal one. Here's what I advise candy to do. I advise candy to estimate how much revenue her work would generate if, let's say each client account, like she said, you know, she used to be responsible for 25 client accounts. So I said, let's just do this rough back of the envelope math. If each client account was about $100,000 that means that you're responsible for $2.5 million in revenue, right? And now, when you go back, you know you're going to be responsible for at least 2.8 million. I think I did my math, right? So with fewer people to handle all the work, the total value of the revenue she's going to be responsible for has grown, right? So instead of making this like, Oh, I've been with this company so many years, and now I have a kid, and no, don't do that, instead invite her boss, the decision maker, if that's the boss or the owner, whomever, who is the decision maker, invite them to a conversation. Invite them to a negotiation, and she can de risk this conversation by saying, Could we have a conversation about adjusting my salary to reflect the value I'm bringing here. Can we have a conversation so that my salary can be commended with the value I'm bringing to this organization? Don't worry, I have this you know, in writing, you can access this script directly from a LinkedIn article that I published recently. I will link to that in the notes. So from there, right? We did planning ahead. We did building a business case, not a personal one, presenting the math, right? The math is so here's the math. I used to be responsible for about $2.5 million in revenue, and now I am handling 2.8 almost $3 million worth of revenue. That's the math. Present the math. It's rational, it's logical. It shows undeniably, there is growing scope of her work, right? And then the fourth thing you want to do is showcase specific wins or successes that demonstrate the quality of her work. And if she allowed herself to patiently re acclimate to work and comfortably get the job done, she'd be able to say, here's what we've gotten done, and here's how this benefits our clients, which benefit our firm, right? You got to showcase the wins, and this is an act of service, if you're not sure what I mean by that. This is a philosophy that I teach my clients, when you can showcase your wins and point to the benefit, the positive impact on that for clients, for a company, for other departments, for you know, for the cause and the mission of the organization, this is an act of service. It will help other people do their jobs better. It will make your boss look good, and people will thank you for going to bat for yourself in this way, you can listen to my very first episode of the podcast. Self Advocacy is an act of service if you want to hear more about that. And finally, get to the yes in the conversation with the decision maker, her boss or the CEO or the owner, whomever, she can secure the yes by asking this question. After she's presented the mathematical case, she's presented the math she's showcased the wins she can say, would you agree I'm adding more value? 100% of my clients who use this framework get a yes to that question. Yes, you're adding more value. Yes, right? And once they've said yes to you, they have bought in the they've they're on the same page with you, that you are doing something valuable, that you're desirable, right, that they want to keep working with you. And then you can say, I'm glad you. Agree this is what my client can say. This what you can say as well. I'm glad you agree that I'm adding value here. That's why I like to ask to have my salary adjusted so it reflects the value I bring again. So you're reiterating that's why I like to ask to have my salary adjusted so that it's, in other words, commensurate with the value I bring, and what would make it so is 20% salary increase or 30,000 extra dollars, or however much that you would like to ask for, I do suggest you make a decision for the amount of money you like to ask for. And of course, it helps to do the research. It helps to, like, think through, okay, what do I want to ask for? Why does it make sense? And then making that ask? Why? Because if you don't tell them what you want, they will decide for you and or, or they'll say, Well, I don't know what you want. You got to tell me what you want, right? Okay, so in conclusion, by building a strong value based case, a math based case, a logical case, Candy can ask for a salary increase that reflects her true contribution. It makes the motherhood tangential. Yes, it does, but ultimately, the salary is a reflection of the value she's bringing to work, and she's clearly bringing more value. She's clearly going to be adding more value. So that's what the case for the Ask should be. Finally, I want to wrap this up by adding that, you know, I again that I think it's really sad that for so many women, maternity leave becomes an excuse for a career setback. It shouldn't be, because maternity leave, first of all, it should be a right, that's what I do. Believe it shouldn't be just a privilege for the few. It should be a right like it should be a right that fathers also get to take parental leave. And I've coached you know, clients who are on the LGBTQ spectrum, clients who are queer, and they they take parental leave, right, not maternity leave. It should be a right, not a privilege, and it should be a testament to incredible personal power that you have to bring in and nurture new life, new consciousness, into this world, and her career progression for candy, her career progression and compensation is she just continual because she's been growing her skills, growing her career and compensation had also been growing right along with her own personal life.

Jamie Lee  28:11
And I think it's so important to remember that even if our society doesn't fully acknowledge what a beautiful and wonderful thing it is to create life like she can choose that mindset of like, Yeah, I'm an even more valuable person. I have, I have more value to add in this world now, as I'm saying that I'm mindful of the fact that I'm recording this in mid August 2024 and recently in the news, we have some US political candidates who are, you know, saying ridiculous things about childless cat ladies. And you know, I'm a childless lady myself. And you know this, this isn't about making a moral judgment, a value judgment. It's not about like valuing motherhood above choosing not to have a child. It's not about that at all. It's the inverse. It's like, No, we're all equal, right? We have gender wage gap, and the wage gap is much, much narrower, narrower for childless women in certain industries, in some sectors, right? And I don't think that should be the case. I think all women, whether you have a child or not, whether you are a parent or not, right? I think we want to be treated fairly. We want to be paid equally, right? And the first step to closing that map, that closing that gap is sometimes internal, is sometimes like allowing ourselves to go into that imagination world and imagine. In that we are more valuable, not less, for doing something that is really magical, right, creating life, even if it starts with us like we can flip the script of motherhood penalty into motherhood bonus. And I think that can lead to that, even if it's like a single percentage increase in confidence, or the willingness to take action, the willingness to have a risky conversation. Because, as I've said, everything that's rewarding is on this other side of a risky conversation. I hope you enjoy this, and if you'd like to learn more about my coaching or anything else that I do, come on over to Jamie Lee, coach.com I will talk to you soon. Bye.