How to Open a Conversation and Ask for a Raise with Gabriela Taveras
Welcome to another episode of “Dream Job with Danielle Cobo”!
Today, I am blessed to be joined by Gabriela Taveras.
Gabriela is the Co-Founder of Equal Pay Group, an organization that provides compensation analysis for organizations to determine pay gaps and strategy to restructure compensation programs. In addition, she is a former professional recruiter. Gabriela served as the 2018 Miss Massachusetts. She is completing her Master of Business Administration with Corporate Renewal at Northeastern University. Gabriela is a motivational speaker and life coach.
Gabriela talks about innovative solutions to address the wage gap.
“It’s about progress, not perfection” –Gabriela Taveras
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Fear Face Everything and Rise
I think for me, especially being Miss Massachusetts. When I was Miss Massachusetts, I just saw so much and my platform was Fear Face Everything and Rise, which was educating individuals, particularly adolescents, about how is it that they can be able to overcome adversities, how they could turn the things that hurt them into things that empower them? As I listened to more and more stories, it really did validate for me. This was mine due. This was pre-pandemic. So it confirmed for me there's so much that we have to do as a society to really be able to provide everyone with the opportunity to meet their maximum potential, and now post Miss Massachusetts, it's a matter of trying to figure out what are the creative ways as a leader, as a business owner, as a woman, that I can be able to pour into other people and pour into being able to make actual change possible.
Why Is Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace Important?
So Equal Pay Group is a hybrid kind of thing. So we are basically a compensation consulting firm with a DEI focus, and what that essentially means is the compensation industry is notoriously white, and I have no issues with that because all of my peers are playing their own part. But I do think that it's important for us when we have these conversations, especially about compensation, and looking at how big the wage gap is that we include people of color within that dialogue, and I think Equal Pay Group in itself because I'm working so diligently to make sure I'm building a team of diverse talent to be able to make sure that we can be considerate of not just cisgender individuals, but also nonbinary being able to be considerate of not just women, but women of color. We hear the statistics all the time that women make $0.82 on a white man's dollar, but for Latino women, that statistic is actually $0.53 on a white man's dollar. So we're looking at doing how the work? Sorry, doing the same work for half to pay, and that in 2021 is just absolutely unacceptable. There's truly no reason for it.
So equal pay group will execute compensation analysis. We'll do compensation benchmarking. We can do a pay equity analysis, and we can also do policy reviews for organizations as well to be able to help them address, where is the wage gap. How is it forming? Why is it forming? What do we do about it? So we are the ones who really look at it, not just to say, for example, most compensation firms, they'll be able to tell you, yes, this is the wage gap. These are the people who've been impacted, and these are salary recommendations. But our goal as an organization is to take it a step further and to say, okay, we understand what the wage gap is. Do we see that ethnicity is playing a role in this yes or no? We use technology to be able to get all this information to make sure we have the most accurate information.
When we see the pandemic push just ten years ahead, technologically like technologically speaking, it pushes ten years ahead of where we were supposed to be before. We would never be able to do this podcast from Massachusetts to Florida if we did a traditional route of sitting in the same space. But now we can. So now that we can do all of these things that were never able to be done before. Now we can actually challenge and have these conversations about how we find innovative solutions to address the wage gap as opposed to just allowing us to exist.
What we're seeing right now with companies where we look at the Black Lives Matter movement, we look at all of the conversations about not just race within society, but race, especially in the workplace. I mean, I have peers who once upon a time, had never heard of code-switching, even though I would do it all the time, and for those of you who aren't familiar code-switching is basically when you bring a different version of yourself to work, which is something people of color really do regularly. I think now we're starting to see organizations starting to say to your point, we need to start fixing these problems, because these problems are human problems, and that's the role of human resources is to solve human problems. So now we need to start using it for the intended purposes besides just trying to avoid, you know, getting lawsuits and things like that, which of course, are really important. We emphasize that we're trying to prevent any unequal pay claims from being filed against our clients. But we really just need to make sure that we're capitalizing on all of the resources that we have, and really making sure that everyone gets that support that they deserve.
Paycheck Fairness Act - Closing All The Loopholes That Exist Within Organizations
The Paycheck Fairness Act still hasn't been passed, which is so frustrating, because it was introduced in 1997 if I'm not mistaken. What the Paycheck Fairness Act is supposed to do is to help amend the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and so the Equal Pay Act essentially does now in Massachusetts, every state's a little bit different. But in Massachusetts, for example, you cannot ask for an employee's history, or salary history. As a recruiter, I was over-cruder when this got passed and amended. It was difficult for me to be able to gauge what were they made before. What should they be making now in this role that I'm considering them for? So within the staffing industry, it probably isn't everyone's favorite rule. But the Paycheck Fairness Act is meant to close all of those loopholes that exist within organizations or within just the way that compensation is handled in this country to ensure that organizations are being held accountable. So that would mean that would actually require turning in your compensation and showing the government that you don't have any wage gaps actually showing them and giving them historical data. So they can be able to say, are we getting better at this? Or are we getting worse at this? A lot of people don't even know that in the past 10 years, the wage gap has shifted 0.53, and think of all the things that have happened since then, then 10 years all brown one of them, we have all of these things that are happening are being innovated are being introduced. Yeah, we won't even introduce our past legislature to be able to ensure that we're holding all organizations accountable, which is super important, in cases like Google. Google recently had to settle a lawsuit where they had to pay out $1.35 million if I'm not mistaken. That was to 1500 individuals that were women because they were actually being discriminated against, and we're being paid equitably. Amazon recently has been in the news talking about how they haven't been paying their employees equitably. There's no hazard pay, there are all of these different things. I don't call these organizations out to necessarily chastise them or take them down. But to really raise awareness to the fact that there are gaps within our compensation structures as a country.
The Paycheck Fairness Act is so important because it helps close those gaps, and it allows people like myself, who really care about fixing the issue, to be able to fix the issue in a way that can be sustainable, and that's what we need. You don't need compensation for him to come in and solve your issues this one time. That's something that needs to be done regularly because it happens. Promotions happen. People leave the company. People get fired from the company. There are so many different things that contribute to what it is that an individual gets paid. Those are things that we can't say, oh, only 10 people are going to have a career change or employment change status, there's gonna probably be more so we need to make sure that we're being consistent and making sustainable solutions available to everybody.
Look For Companies That Disclose Salary Ranges On Job Postings
My biggest thing that I could recommend is looking for organizations that do have their salary ranges already posted on their job postings, and when you do that, and you start collecting that information, it will allow you to eventually say, okay, this is the job that I want. This is the industry I want to be in, from the company that I was able to find the salary range for, these are the ranges. Now, what looks like the most consistent range that I'm seeing, and that will give you a great determining factor for you to get the most accurate representation? You’ll want to work with individuals who either have a compensation background like myself, or you're going to want to work with someone who maybe does work in negotiating salaries and has that historical data because they've been doing it for a while.
But ultimately, for you to be able, my biggest advice to individuals looking at their offer letter and looking at their compensation is to have an idea of what the number is before you even get to that point. So you can go through this entire process, but you need to know that your number when you start this process is x. So let's say your number is I won't go, one of my mentors actually told me a story about how he requested 200k, I was very upfront about it and said I will not take this position, if it is not 200k went to the entire interview process.
The really important thing for people to understand is 83% of the time when you negotiate your salary, or when you negotiate your offer letter, you're going to get it 83, not 50, 50 or 40, 60 or 30, 70 83% of the time, and the obstacle is not the negotiation, the obstacle is yourself. Now you have to confront yourself. You have to say, am I willing to actually put a value on myself, because people tend to say, well, that's a lot of money for not a lot of time, well, you're we're not paying people for their time are paying people for their value. So if you know that this is your value for you to feel comfortable for you to be confident for you to know you can keep the roof over your head, food on the table kids fed or your lifestyle, whatever it is, that's important to you, if you know what that number is, and stick to that number. If it's like a small business, or maybe a medium-sized business, maybe you won't have as much leeway because they have limited capital.
Make A Difference As An Organization
I think that's what organizations need to continue to do, they need to show that they maybe haven't always gotten it right. But they're willing to do it now, and that's really my message with Equal Pay Group, very much the focus is there's no shame in the wage gap existing at your organizations. I mean, it's kind of like how now people are having an awakening to privilege and to racism and things like that be individuals like myself, we've lived in this reality for quite a while. However, now people are being awakened to that reality. So, now people are saying, Wow, I had no idea. But now that I know I'm going to do better, and that's the mentality we all need to have, we all need to be focusing on. Okay, I need to stop shaming myself for doing what was exactly expected of me. Because organizations were originally created to make money like every company in this country, his primary focus is how do I increase my revenue, and that's fine. But now that you know better, you can do better and join us in doing that better.
Why Life Coach Is SO Beneficial In An Organization
I can only imagine because that was honestly, as a life coach, that's my favorite thing being able to figure out, what is it that you want. What do you want? What have you done to try to get there? It's like I saw on Instagram the other day, it was what is trying to look like. Because a lot of us get stuck in that trying phase. It's like, Okay, so this is what trial looks like, what does doing look like? Because it's important for you to know what kind of trying and what doing looks like. So I love that part about being a life coach as well, because it gives me that opportunity to be able to identify, where are you now? Where do you want to be? How did you get to this point? Because a lot of the times, we'll say all of a sudden, I don't know what it is, but I don't feel like myself anymore. When you don't allow yourself to figure out what it is that got you to that point, you just focus on what you just need to get out. Well, okay, it's great if you get out. But if you can't identify what got you here in the first place, or it's madness you're gonna end up right back where you started, and you're gonna be really upset that you didn't end up making as much segue as you wanted. So I love that aspect, and I love that you have understood exactly what it feels like. Because it is very when you see the lights go on is what I say when you see the light, and you're like, ah, they get it. Yes, finally.
Three Things You Need to Speak Up for Yourself
Stop being a perfectionist and focus on your progress
When organizations diversify their executive teams in gender and race, they start to see SUCCESS
Allow yourself to step outside of your comfort zone and understand life from a different perspective from other people
Today, I am blessed to be joined by Gabriela Taveras.
Gabriela is the Co-Founder of Equal Pay Group, an organization that provides compensation analysis for organizations to determine pay gaps and strategy to restructure compensation programs. In addition, she is a former professional recruiter. Gabriela served as the 2018 Miss Massachusetts. She is completing her Master of Business Administration with Corporate Renewal at Northeastern University. Gabriela is a motivational speaker and life coach.
Gabriela talks about innovative solutions to address the wage gap.
“It’s about progress, not perfection” –Gabriela Taveras
Highlights
💫 1:21 Meet Gabriela Taveras
💫 4:48 Fear, Face Everything and Rise
💫 9:56 Bringing A Different Version of Yourself to Work
💫15:15 Three Steps You Can Take to Close the Wage Gap
💫19:01 How to Negotiate Your Compensation
💫 33:37 3 Key Take-Aways
Transcript
Danielle Cobo
Hey, beautiful. Welcome to Dream Job with Danielle Cobo podcast. I am Danielle Cobo, an elite career coach, and I believe every woman has the power to step into their dream jobs, earn the salary they are worth and live the life they desire. Each week you join me, you're going to hear from the inspiring women who have overcome adversity and levels up their career. You're going to learn how to eliminate that inner credit that is holding you back from pursuing your dreams, how to build confidence, create healthy boundaries to transition, burn-out to reenergize and gain clarity on how to accelerate your career. It's never too late to pursue your dream jobs. The time is now. Are you ready? Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Dream Job with Danielle Cobo. I am Danielle Cobo, and we have another amazing guest and I can share with you. I have been looking forward to this interview ever since I had the opportunity to meet this individual, this incredible woman. I've been looking forward to this interview. So today we have Gabriella Traverse. She is the co-founder of Equal Pay Group. She is the 2018 Miss Massachusetts. She's absolutely stunning, and more importantly she has such a sweetheart. She's a former recruiter, she's a life coach, and she's the host of the Deer HR podcast. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Gabriela Taveras
Thank you so much, Danielle. I'm so excited to be here and to share. I love talking to you whenever since we first met. So I'm so excited to talk to you and to your audience just so thankful.
Danielle Cobo
You have such an incredible story. I just remember walking away from our initial conversation with goosebumps, and that whole evening when I was having dinner with my husband, I was like, this woman is powerful. So tell us, walk us through your journey from being Miss 2018 Massachusetts to where you're at today. You have such a powerful story. I want to hear it.
Gabriela Taveras
Yeah. Where do I really begin? So I think when I was growing up, I thought it was just me. As I grew up, I learned that it wasn't. Being a child in a single-parent household, growing up in a city that at the time, I guess even now, it's still looked at as not a great city in Lawrence, Massachusetts, even though I think this is the greatest city out there, a little bias. I just grew up really understanding that it takes a community, it takes a village to be able to make one person be who they are. So I'm super thankful for my community of people who poured into me. I realized that I had to at some point join in that, it's great to receive, but it's even better to give. I really just committed myself to community service and things like that, which exposed me to how much hurt and pain it is that there is in the world, and even now within my work with Equal Pay Group, I see our focus of the organization is to heal people and heal companies like that's, like my brand as I heal people and I heal companies, I heal people. As a life coach, I heal companies, Equal Pay Group, and that led me to traveling. I was able to go to Switzerland for example, and able to do work with an orphan age down there and really just be able to understand that there's so many things on the policy side of government that needs to be amended, and so Equal Pay Group, I hope, is going to be the solution for us within this country, to be able to provide equal pay to men, women, and especially women of color as well, who are even more disproportionately impacted by the wage gap. So there's even more, though I'm like an MBA student, and I have all these other things that are going on. I'm like, I don't know where else you want me to go because I could write a book.
Danielle Cobo
You absolutely could, when we are going through. I'm like, okay, let's talk about introducing you all the things that you're doing. I mean, you're right. You're going to Northeastern University that you're getting your MBA. The list goes on and on how much of an impact. You're a leader. You're a student and you're just continuing to pour into your community, and share, and support.
Gabriela Taveras
Yeah. I think for me, especially being Miss Massachusetts. When I was Miss Massachusetts, I just I saw so much and my platform was Fear face Everything and Rise, which was educating individuals, particularly adolescents, about how is it that they can be able to overcome adversities, how they could turn the things that hurt them into things that empower them? As I listened to more and more stories, it really did validate for me. This was mine due. This was pre-pandemic. So it confirmed for me there's so much that we have to do as a society to really be able to provide everyone with the opportunity to meet their maximum potential, and now post Miss Massachusetts, it's a matter of trying to figure out what are the creative ways as a leader, as a business owner, as a woman, that I can be able to pour into other people and pour into being able to make actual change possible.
Danielle Cobo
It's so true. So share with us, tell us a little bit about what does Equal Pay Group does.
Gabriela Taveras
So Equal Pay Group is what I love to. It's like a hybrid kind of thing. So we are basically a compensation consulting firm with a DEI focus, and what that essentially means is the compensation industry is notoriously white, and I have no issues with that because all of my peers are playing their own part. But I do think that it's important for us when we have these conversations, especially about compensation, and looking at how big the wage gap is that we include people of color within that dialogue, and I think equal pay group in itself because I'm working so diligently to make sure I'm building a team of diverse talent to be able to make sure that we can be considerate of not just cisgender individuals, but also non binary being able to be considerate of not just women, but women of color. We hear the statistics all the time that women make $0.82 on a white man's dollar, but for Latino women, that statistic is actually $0.53 to white man's dollars. So we're looking at doing how the work? Sorry, doing the same work for half to pay, and that in 2021 is just absolutely unacceptable. There's truly no reason for it. So equal pay group will execute compensation analysis. We'll do compensation benchmarking. We can do a pay equity analysis, and we can also do policy reviews for organizations as well to be able to help them address, where is the wage gap? How is it forming? Why is it forming? What do we do about it? So we are the ones who really look at it, not just to say, for example, most compensation firms, they'll be able to tell you, yes, this is the wage gap. These are the people who've been impacted, and these are salary recommendations. But our goal as an organization is to take it a step further and to say, okay, we understand what the wage gap is. Do we see that ethnicity is playing a role into this yes or no? We use technology to be able to get all this information to make sure we have the most accurate information. Then we'll say, okay, we're noticing here that there's a specific group of people within a specific demographic who seem to be very concentrated to this one region of your business and aren't advancing into this other side. Why is that happening and really being able to challenge some of the structures that currently exist because you hear all the time, well, this is just how we've always done things. Well, the way that we've always done things isn't always the best way to do things, especially in a world that's evolving as rapidly as ours. When we see the pandemic push just ten years ahead, technologically like technologically speaking, it pushes ten years ahead of where we were supposed to be before. We would never be able to do this podcast from Massachusetts to Florida, if we did a traditional route of sitting in the same space. But now we can. So now that we can do all of these things that were never being able to be done before. Now we can actually challenge and have these conversations about how do we find innovative solutions to address the wage gap as opposed to just allowing us to exist?
Danielle Cobo
I love how you go beyond not only creating the solution, also trying to identify why, why is this happening? Because I mean to be doing the same work and be making half to pay. That's devastating to hear.
Gabriela Taveras
It is.
Danielle Cobo
That should not be happening, and so I love how you guys just take it a step further and you really try to identify why this is, you're opening up the conversations that need to be had. These conversations need to happen. The only way that these conversations are going to happen is if we talk about it and spread awareness like we are right now and then the second is when companies start saying, okay, we're going to put action in place, and we're going to hire a company to help us identify the gaps.
Gabriela Taveras
Yes, I think that's what we're seeing right now with companies where we look at the Black Lives Matter movement, we look at all of the conversations about not just race within society, but race, especially in the workplace. I mean, I have peers who once upon a time, had never heard of code-switching, even though I would do it all the time, and those of you who aren't familiar code switching is basically when you bring a different version of yourself to work, which is something people of color really do regularly. So when I worked in organisations that were predominantly white, I knew that I couldn't bring certain aspects of who I was or my culture, because whenever I would interject those things that would be countercultural for the room that I was in, but very cultural to me, because of the environment I was raised in. I could see that it wasn't always received well. I think now we're starting to see organisations starting to say to your point, we need to start fixing these problems, because these problems are human problems, and that's the role of human resources is to solve human problems. So now we need to start using it for the intended purposes besides just trying to avoid, you know, getting lawsuits and things like that, which of course, those are really important. We emphasise that we're trying to prevent any unequal pay claims being filed against our clients. But we really just need to make sure that we're capitalizing on all of the resources that we have, and really making sure that everyone gets that support that they deserve.
Danielle Cobo
That is incredible. I love what your company does, and the way that you're supporting these organisations and opening these conversations and putting things into action. Now, tell us a little bit about the Paycheck Act.
Gabriela Taveras
Yes, so the Paycheck Fairness Act still hasn't been passed, which is so frustrating, because it was introduced in 1997, if I'm not mistaken. What the Paycheck Fairness Act is supposed to do is to help amend the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and so the Equal Pay Act what essentially does or now in Massachusetts, every state's a little bit different. But in Massachusetts, for example, you cannot ask for an employee's history, salary history. As a recruiter, I was over cruder when this got passed and amended. It was difficult for me to be able to gauge what were they making before? What should they be making now in this role that I'm considering them for? So within the staffing industry, it's probably isn't everyone's favourite rule. But the Paycheck Fairness Act is meant to close all of those loopholes that exist within organisations or within just the way that compensation is handled in this country to ensure that organisations are being held accountable. So that would mean that would actually require turning in your compensation and showing the government that you don't have any wage gaps actually showing them giving them historical data. So they can be able to say, are we getting better at this? Or are we getting worse at this? A lot of people don't even know that in the past 10 years, the wage gap has shifted 0.53, and think of all the things that have happened since then, then 10 years all brown one of them, we have all of these things that are happening are being innovated are being introduced. Yeah, we won't even introduce our past legislature to be able to ensure that we're holding all organisations accountable, which is super important, cases like Google. Google recently had to settle a lawsuit where they had to pay out $1.35 million, if I'm not mistaken. That was to 1500 individuals that were women because they were actually being discriminated against, and we're being paid on equitably. Amazon recently has been in the news talking about how they haven't been paying their employees equitably. There's no hazard pay, there's all of these different things. I don't call these organisations out to necessarily chastise them or take them down. But to really raise awareness to the fact that there is gaps within our compensation structures as a country. The Paycheck Fairness Act is so important, because it helps close those gaps, and it allows people like myself, who really care about fixing the issue, to be able to fix the issue in a way that can be sustainable, and that's what we need. You don't need a compensation for him to come in and solve your issues this one time. That's something that needs to be done regularly, because it happens. Promotions happen. People leave the company. People get fired from the company. There’s so many different things that contribute to what it is that an individual gets paid. Those are things that we can't say, oh, only 10 people are going to have a career change or employment change status, there's gonna probably be more so we need to make sure that we're being consistent and making sustainable solutions available to everybody.
Danielle Cobo
Yes. So tell us for those people that are in HR, right, and that are listening right now, they can immediately put things into action and they can reach out to your group. What about the people that aren't in an HR role? How can they create awareness and make an impact so that we can really get this movement going beyond the 0.53 within the past 10 years?
Gabriela Taveras
Yeah, I know. It's like, Come on, guys. Let's move on, let's rally the troops. Well, one thing people can do is if they want to champion the Paycheck Fairness Act, I think that's great. Most people, I think don't even know that the Paycheck Fairness Act has been introduced and has been shut down for the past, what, 20 years at this point. So one thing they can do, they can contact their state legislators and start and start that dialogue around I want you to champion this, I want this to be a main focus, because the Paycheck Fairness Act isn't really a focus as much as people are focusing on like a $15 minimum wage, for example, because they feel like that can be something that's a little bit more immediate. But if you were to go and actually contact your legislator, that's the first thing that you can do. The second thing that you can do is kind of scandalous to say, but employers can't take any action against you in certain states if you have discussions pertaining to equal pay. So for example, if you are a male within a specific position, and you have a female colleague who has the same position, there's probably a high chance that you get paid more than her. We can probably also bet that she does as much work or maybe just a little bit more work, because that tends to be the trend with women within the workspace. So you can advocate for your peers and making sure that you're champion for them to get what it is that they also deserve. No one can take away what you're getting, but they can always contribute to what someone else is getting, and I think if we look at it more as a collective issue, as opposed to an individual issue, then we'll be able to make greater segue and being able to achieve that equal pay, because this country is very individualistic. That's what we talk about in my classes all the time. It's like America is a very individualistic country. But the good news about it is it's not that we know we can change it, and that's what we're starting to see people lean more towards, is this may not be my problem. But this is our problem now, because you're not getting your fair cut of the pie means that I need to do my effort and exercise my privilege to be able to help you be able to get that slice.
Danielle Cobo
And that starts by opening up dialogue and questions and communication and talking about it.
Gabriela Taveras
Absolutely, you can even go up to your managers, for example, it's very simple. You can go to your managers and say, I would really like to understand why is it that I'm at this compensation, and I just want to understand where my capacity is within this organisation. You can ask them for a salary range, and using that salary range, you can see where you're at, what's the minimum, what's the maximum, and then you can start that dialogue with your managers and saying, What do I need to do to get to that higher compensation bracket? If the answer is, there's really nothing you can do, because this position is just a standing position, and to get that higher competition, you would just have to move into another role that has more responsibilities, but at least you're fostering that conversation, and you're able to say, Okay, what are the steps I need to achieve in order to get to where I want to be? Because everyone, no one's trying to shy away from the work. We understand the more money you make, the more work you're gonna have to do, or maybe not, because actually the people who are like no, the higher up you get, the more decisions you have to make, but the less work you have to do.
Danielle Cobo
Oh, yeah.
Gabriela Taveras
Like, however it works out. But either way, you can start that dialogue with your managers, and then also that helps them to keep it at the forefront of their mind that you're paying attention, because a lot of the times managers don't even know if people are paying attention. It's always important to ask questions to show them that you are a powerful.
Danielle Cobo
Powerful, very, very powerful. So, here's an interesting thing when people are going for positions, only 70% of jobseekers ask for negotiate their salary. I mean, sorry, 70% of hiring managers expect that candidates are going to negotiate their salary. However, very seldom do people negotiate their offer letter? What advice would you give to job seekers? I mean, how did they know whether what they're asking for or what their offer letter is? Is fair market value for their experience?
Gabriela Taveras
There is no easy way to answer that. Because right now, I don't think that there's this extremely reliable source that I could actually recommend to people. Because the sources that we have right now, are these online. I'll leave them nameless, because again, I don't want to chastise any organizations have right now the sources that we have are still based off of consumers and they're still based off of contributions from audiences, and that's not always going to be correct. I can make a profile and put incorrect information just because I want access to the resources on this website. I could also inflate the cost or inflate how much it is that I'm making. Just because I want to, I want to do that. I can also say I'm making less because I want to convince people not to pursue this line of business, there's just so many different things that can contribute to the information you can find online. My biggest thing that I could recommend is looking for organizations that do have their salary ranges already posted on their job postings, and when you do that, and you start collecting that information, it will allow you to eventually say, okay, this is the job that I want. This is the industry I want to be in, from the company that I was able to find the salary range for, these are the ranges. Now what looks like the most consistent range that I'm seeing, and that will give you a great determining factor for you to get the most accurate representation? You’ll want to work with individuals who either have a compensation background like myself, or you're going to want to work with someone who maybe does work in negotiating salaries and has that historical data, because they've been doing it for a while. But ultimately, for you to be able, my biggest advice to individuals looking at their offer letter and looking at their compensation is to have an idea of what the number is before you even get to that point. So for you can go through this entire process, but you need to know that your number when you start this process is x. So let's say your number is I won't go, one of my mentors actually told me a story about how he requested 200k, I was very upfront about it and said I will not take this position, if it is not 200k went to the entire interview process. Everybody loved him, and then he got to the end where he was the offer letter par and the compensation negotiation part. He's from HR. So obviously, he was going to negotiate. But he said I know less than 200. They tried to lowball him and say, well, we can't, we can't afford that. At the end, he ended up getting the offer that he wanted, because he would not budge. So, the really important thing for people to understand is 83% of the time when you negotiate your salary, or when you negotiate your offer letter, you're going to get it 83, not 50, 50 or 40, 60 or 30, 70 83% of the time, and the obstacle is not the negotiation, the obstacle is yourself. Now you have to confront yourself. You have to say, am I willing to actually put a value on myself, because people tend to say, well, that's a lot of money for not a lot of time, well, you're we're not paying people for their time are paying people for their value. So if you know that this is your value for you to feel comfortable for you to be confident for you to know you can keep the roof over your head, food on the table kids fed or your lifestyle, whatever it is, that's important to you, if you know what that number is, and stick to that number. If it's like a small business, or maybe a medium sized business, maybe you won't have as much leeway because they have limited capital. But when we're looking at these really large organizations that are hitting over 300 employees, they bring in revenues of millions of billions of dollars, there is always some level of wiggle room, it just depends on how well you're present. You're positioning yourself and your value proposition throughout that entire interview process. Because if they know that they need you, they'll pay you, they will trust me because we were like, we know we need you. I'm like, Okay, I know you need me, you know, you need me. Now we're in agreement, and I am excited about this opportunity. So let's talk about how is it that I can remain excited about this opportunity and also still be able to remain enthusiastic about my own personal life.
Danielle Cobo
So you brought up a really good point about negotiating and having that conversation in the interview. Because what I oftentimes see is, first people are scared to ask the salary range, the compensation range in the first interview, and I believe that should always happen in the first interview, a couple of reasons. You could be going for a position that's far less, and then and they'll be able to tell you we can't extend that range. Why waste anybody's time, don't go through four interviews, six interviews, and then come to find out what the salary is, after you've gone through that entire process. It's a very emotional, physical, time consuming journey to go through the interview process. So it's so important to have that conversation right out of the gate, right in the beginning, and when you get to that offer letter, like you just said, 83% of the time, you're going to receive the negotiated amount when you ask for it, and it's so important that you have that mindset of knowing I'm worth what I'm asking for, based off of the value I bring the experience that I have the impact that I can make. I'm worth the amount and the more you believe in yourself, the more your company the individuals hiring are going to believe in you as well.
Gabriela Taveras
Exactly. How can you expect them to believe it if you don't? It's like everything, how could you sell me if you don't think this is the greatest car in the whole wide world, and you're trying to sell me this car, you're not gonna get the sale because you think this car is subpar at best, and now I believe this car subpar at best, and now I don't want this car, I just want to get a car that someone else really, really believes in is really excited about and I'm sales one on one. I mean, obviously you have a background in sales, as do I. But whenever I would go, for example to my managers to try to negotiate, what is it that they're going to be paying candidates, I would have to go there with the mindset of, I believe in this candidate so strongly, so firmly, I know exactly what value they have to offer. Now I'm going to craft my value proposition off of for this person based off of all the qualities that they can contribute and knowing that I'm not going to back down if I really believe in this candidate, and I really want them to get this job. So it's just a matter of again, really understanding what your value is, what your worth is, and sticking to it. Because I think the easiest thing you can do in those types of situations is to fold, it's easy for you to fold. Now, if it's a great opportunity, it's your foot into the inside the door, then take whatever it is that you might feel like his best. But again, it's understanding what do you want out of this, because if you don't even know what you want out of it, then we have bigger conversations we need to talk about because you should never just go somewhere and not know what you want out of that experience. If it's not gonna be the paycheck, there has to be something.
Danielle Cobo
I want to add to this, knowing your worth and knowing your value. So I worked for an organisation was a fortune 500 company, and what would happen is if we hired somebody externally, there was this range that we had. So the first thing I would do is I would always try to hire people in at the higher range, because then that always increased my overall range of my team. So that was one thing, and what I found is when we hired when we promoted people internally, from like an inside sales position to an outside sales position, they were offered a significantly lower salary because they weren't viewed as valuable because they were an inside sales representative going outside, however, we hired somebody outside, they would get more that never made sense to me, it shows that we don't value our place.
Gabriela Taveras
Yes, it happens so much. I vividly remember working for a tech company. I was going through the process, it was in the midst of pandemic, and it was like an entry level role. I really was like, I just need money at this point. Because I got laid off, I need to start making money. I remember that I went through the interview process and they said your skill sets are more for a management role, and I agreed. So I went through that interview process, and then I never got feedback on why is it that I didn't get the management job, but I ended up in the original position that I interviewed for. It was so funny, because I realised that I would get paid less, and therefore because they have a very lean, cheap mentality when it comes to certain things like they like to keep the cost as low as possible. So I realised that once I had gotten in, everyone was already looking to promote me into management, but the management position that they turned me down for, and so it might be like a conspiracy theory, but I really did realise I was like, wow, if I was hired externally, I had that bargaining power, I was able to shoot for that higher number and they were able to say, Sure, we can meet that. But if I got promoted from the position that I actually was hired into, I was going to be making 10, 15, 20k pay less, and that's after having the value of already understanding the business line understanding how things work, understanding who has what level of influence and power and authority. So yes, we don't really, unfortunately value our internal employees as much. I think right now, what we're starting to see is that organisations are building these career pathway programmes. They're building these affiliation organisations within their companies, and they're doing these things to try to actually develop their employees further and be able to identify who are those high potential employees? Where do we get them to go like, where do we shift them through? Then who's going to be their successor? If we can't find any successors, then who do we need to develop to see if they have that potential to rise to the occasion where we need them to?
Danielle Cobo
Oh, you know what actually that company I worked for, I don't know how this happened, who got the conversations going? That's exactly what they did.
Gabriela Taveras
Yeah.
Danielle Cobo
They created a career development plan, and they identified like, Where do you want to go within the organisation? Let's help build a career plan for you, and they actually close the gap on what that salary was when they were promoting within. So they took the actions. It just took a few years to get there. Ultimately, they're taking steps in the progress. So I want to celebrate that, and it was obviously a good experience to see and learn from. So I'm happy that they take that action and that more companies are investing in the internal resources that they can do to develop their employees.
Gabriela Taveras
Yes, I think that's what organisations need to continue to do, they need to show that they maybe haven't always gotten it right. But they're willing to do it now, and that's really my message with equal pay group, even with equal pay group, very much the focus is there's no shame in the wage gap existing at your organizations. I mean, it's kind of like how now people are having an awakening to privilege and to racism and things like that be individuals like myself, we've lived in this reality for quite a while. However, now people are being awakened to that reality. So, now people are saying, Wow, I had no idea. But now that I know I'm going to do better, and that's the mentality we all need to have, we all need to be focusing on. Okay, I need to stop shaming myself for doing what was exactly expected of me. Because organizations were originally created to make money like every company in this country, his primary focus is how do I increase my revenue, and that's fine. But now that you know better, you can do better and join us in doing that better.
Danielle Cobo
And that starts with hiring organisations like you, because you get to open up the opportunity to have a conversation, and then second to that is what I do, what I do is I partner with organizations to help develop their employees, to help build their career plans and teach individuals within the organization to, you know, improve their sales training includes improve their developing of their brand, and career planning overall, like if there's certain positions they want to step into, I get to help them build their career plan, and it's so amazing to be a part of.
Gabriela Taveras
I can only imagine because that was honestly, as a life coach, that's my favourite thing is being able to figure out, what is it that you want? What do you want? What have you done to try to get there? It's like I saw on Instagram the other day, it was what is trying look like? Because a lot of us we get stuck in that trying phase. It's like, Okay, so this is what trial looks like, what does doing look like? Because it's important for you to know what kind of trying and what doing looks like. So I love that part about being a life coach as well, because it gives me that opportunity to be able to identify, where are you now? Where do you want to be? How did you get to this point? Because a lot of the times, we'll say all of a sudden, I don't know what it is, but I don't feel like myself anymore. When you don't allow yourself to figure out what it is that got you to that point, and you just focus on what I just need to get out. Well, okay, it's great if you get out. But if you can't identify what got you here in the first place, or it its madness you're gonna end up right back where you started, and you're gonna be really upset that you didn't end up making as much segue as you wanted. So I love that aspect, and I love that you have understand exactly what it feels like. Because it is very when you see the lights go on is what I say when you see the light, and you're like, ah, they get it. Yes, finally.
Danielle Cobo
Oh, I mean, I'm getting goosebumps even just us talking about it. Because it's 100% true when you get to see your clients go through this. This aha moment. It is so powerful.
Gabriela Taveras
Yeah.
Danielle Cobo
So, tell us what are three things that you really want our audience to just say, Okay, this is the action that I can take. This is what my doing could do. What are three things that you want us to walk away from our conversation today?
Gabriela Taveras
Well, one of my big things that I love teaching people it's about progress, not perfection, I have a conversation lined up with an organization overseas, and that entire conversation is just focusing on progress, not perfection, because perfectionism in the workplace is really damning. It's perfectionism in the workplace looks like wanting to ask a question, but not asking it because you're afraid that your colleagues are gonna judge you because you didn't know. Even though they someone else probably also doesn't know. But you're allowing your perfectionist and your idea to appear like you have it all figured out and you know everything to really stand in that way. So get out of your own way. It's so unproductive to want to have an appearance. Like I say this all the time, why try to maintain an appearance, when that appearance is eventually going to fade away and you're going to start seeing who was swimming naked. Like that's really like you are swimming naked when you don't make any progress. So far progress, not perfection is my biggest thing. My second thing is a quality is good business. We have seen so many organisations now I don't want to mislead people in saying, if you hire a bunch of women, if you hire a bunch of people of color, you're gonna start making a bunch of money. Because some people actually say that and there's not an actual if this, then that relationship there. But we do see that when organisations diversify their executive teams in gender and in race that they do start to see, I believe, like McKinsey study so that they see a 48% increase in their revenue, and so understanding that when you do more to allow the people in the room to look different from you, then you're going to get further along. There's also this study about Dr. Cathy Philips, she's amazing. She was a professor at Columbia, and unfortunate she passed away. I literally now just study her art so much, because I think she's so phenomenal. But one of the studies that she actually did was focusing on why is it that organisations actually do end up performing better when there are more diverse teams, and it's because just the mere fact of being in the presence of other people who don't look like you in your brain makes you think I cannot assume that they're gonna think the exact same thing as me. Therefore, I need to start thinking differently, and when people start thinking differently, they think we're out of the box, they think bigger picture, they find more creative solutions to problems, and they end up performing a lot better. So really, in changing what the room looks like, you can change everything else about your company. So that's why I say equality is good business. Then my third thing that I would probably have to say, even though I feel like there's so many things that I just have to say all the time is to really allow yourself to step outside of yourself, and to just understand life from a different perspective other people. Now, why do I say that? In one of my courses, we were talking about privilege, and we were talking about how privileged is it? Oh, you must have no problems, because you are the hierarchy of society according to this caste system that we have. Privilege just means the absence of certain obstacles. So I myself have my own privilege, I have the privilege of being able to reach the top shelf in a grocery store, whereas someone who's in a wheelchair, who may not be able to read something on the top shelf. I have the privilege of being able to have gotten a private education eat whether or not I thought that was the best education is irrelevant, because I don't necessarily think it was the best. I think he educated I really believe that life is the real school here that we are focusing on. But I digress. But really just allowing ourselves to step outside of ourselves, and that's what I really hope to do with equal pay group and continue to do as a life coach as well. Because when I work with my clients with equal pay group, it's always to say, look, we're here for a reason, and we all know that that reason is not going to be our favourite reason. But now that we're here, let's take ourselves outside of the situation, let's not allow ourselves to feel attacked, let's not allow ourselves to let our biases slip. And it's not allow ourselves to make any conclusions because my partner, he made this comment one time if that was so interesting. He said, you know, usually when I talk about the wage gap in organisations, it typically is the female individuals who are overseeing the HR departments that say, Oh, no, we don't have a wage gap here. Yeah, interesting, right, like, but women are the ones. Yeah, like, we don't have a wage gap here. Because we all feel like we're all doing our part, we all feel like I'm on top of it. But when we take ourselves outside of it, right, and put what our personal beliefs of what we intended to achieve outside of it, then we can really see that there still is an issue. So, I wonder how many times organisations and individuals both don't take themselves outside of it, and there's an issue, and the issue never even gets found or resolved, because we would rather protect ourselves, and so those are the things I think we really need to be focusing on like so for me, it's not necessarily here's what you can do, like with salary negotiations, always negotiate because 83% of the time you're gonna get it with organisations in the wage gap, do a Pay Equity Analysis annually, protect yourself, protect your organization, protect your employees, and really show them that you're committed to those DEI measures and initiatives that you're introducing into the workplace. Don't just talk the talk, walk the walk, show people because right now, especially in this country, we're not just listening to what people are doing. We're watching what you're doing. You can't go outside and have an attitude and start a whole fight on the sidewalk without someone without a cell phone say and here's a Karen like watching now we are more aware than we ever have been. So don't talk the talk, walk the walk, take yourself outside of it. Look at the world from someone else's perspective. Because when you start putting yourself in the shoes of other individuals, you will be amazed to see how many parts of life that you never even knew existed, because they weren't a part of your reality. But now that you've been exposed to it, you can now help either make that a part of your reality if it was good, or fix it so that way, it doesn't have to be the part of someone else's reality.
Danielle Cobo
Oh my gosh you have such a powerful message. I mean most of the time my podcasts are 30 minutes, but there's no stopping. I mean I can talk to you for hours because you just have such a strong background and passion. You're knowledgeable and you make impact and I'm so grateful that you joined us today. Thank you so much and one more thing, where can my audience find you.
Gabriela Taveras
Yes, so they can find me on social media. My name is Gabriela Taveras, and also find me on LinkedIn under Gabriela Taveras, and if you're looking to utilize Equal Pay Group which I hope anyone who’s listening, who works in HR, wants to learn more. You can find us at EqualPayGroups.com and of course my podcast, Deer HR podcast is on Instagram and on every streaming platform you can think of, and that Deer HR, and then podcast. So I hope that I can see some of your guest, and I hope I can have you on my show, and we can pick you up people and we'll continue.
Danielle Cobo
Yes, yes we are. Thank you so much and if you've listened, and you found that this was just such a powerful message that I believe in as well, that I encourage you to write a comment to rate and review this podcast, and share this podcast with others, because it's such a powerful message. I'm so grateful for you today. Thank you for joining us.
Gabriela Taveras
Thank you.
