I’m sure you’ve heard the term “pay gap” once or twice in your time. And I’m pretty sure that when you think about it, you get the picture that men get a paycheck that weighs 20% more than the females in their same field. I’m not here to dispute the fact that the average woman’s salary is about 85% of a man’s. I’m not here to dispute the fact that women struggle for fair wages.
However, I am here to say there’s a piece of the pay gap no one is actually talking about.
In fact, it’s a completely different kind of pay gap that gets glossed over and shoved to the side, no matter how much we fight for fair wages and equality in the pay scale.
It’s the pay gap between what you do and what you get paid for.
What’s the difference?
The difference is huge.
What you get paid for is the job you were hired to do. It’s what’s written down in black and white somewhere in the hiring papers and shoved into a drawer to be forgotten.
And what you do?
Well, while your job description has been fading away from anyone else’s memory, it’s getting rewritten by the things you’re picking up from the gaps other people are making.
What you do is add more to your plate. You take on others’ responsibilities knowing they’re not going to step up to do it. You do whatever it takes to get the jobs done because someone has to, and it might as well be you.
Can you see how the two don’t quite match up? You’re getting paid to do one job, but you’re actually putting in the effort of several.
Women’s reputation in the workplace
The thing is that female representation in the corporate world isn’t actually growing in leaps or bounds. In the past few years, it hasn’t really improved at all.
Men still hold the majority of manager positions (over 60%)
Women are less likely to have access to senior leaders (over 30%)
Women are more likely to deal with discrimination (more than 20% of women are mistaken for junior levels)
Ladies, it’s time we change this. By actually claiming the work you’re doing, announcing it to your teams, and demanding the respect that work should require. In fact, you’d be proving that women are not only capable of doing the higher jobs, but they, in fact, SHOULD have the higher-paying jobs.
Why? Because you’re the one actually getting ish done. You’re the one ensuring there are no gaps by doing the work of others. You’re the one who should be getting paid for that work.
The burnout effect
You didn’t get to the role you’re in by luck and chance. You’ve been working hard from day one with your company, proving your value as you pushed and pulled your way to where you are now.
You got here by taking on extra work so that you could prove your worth and so that’s what you’ve continued to do. Only, now it’s at the point where no one sees the extra you’re putting in, and the lack of credit is detrimental to your advancement into the next role.
You’ve become reliable and indispensable right where you are. So, why would anyone promote you?
Today, more women are taking on extra responsibilities. They’re doing more to support their teams. They’re doing more for their companies to succeed. And in the same breath, more women are letting that critical extra work go unrecognized and unrewarded in the name of helping out the business.
All the extra work, extra tasks, and extra unspoken commitments that aren’t being prioritized add to the invisible weight on every woman’s shoulders. This leads to one very detrimental thing: they become complacent with the idea that they’re just gonna have to pick up the slack without being recognized for it.
That is until they burn themselves out to the point where they can’t do any of it anymore. Including the role, they were hired for.
What’s Your Corporate Worth?
While I can’t put a black and white pound, euro, or dollar amount on what you should be paid, I can tell you one thing: You are worth more than the paycheck you’re currently getting.
If you’re feeling the burnout of taking on too many tasks, and yet you know your hand needs to be on them because who else is going to do them? Hugo? Not likely.
If you’ve scratched and clawed your way to where you are now and you’re tired of digging your nails in and barely getting the recognition you deserve,
Then you’re worth way more than the job you get paid for.
Because that’s the pay of a single job when you’re doing several. We all know that when you leave or go on mat leave or are have been signed off with stress and burn out that you will be replaced with two or three other people splitting your role.
Not many see this type of pay gap, maybe you’ve not been seeing it, either. But this is the one I see all the time. And my guess is, if we all join together (like in The Compass Club) to demand the pay we deserve, we’ll see more women in leadership and fewer women at the brunt end of discrimination and pushover.
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