The Maine Women's Journal - Fall 2007

Negotiating salaries is a challenge for women at all stages of their careers, as women are less likely than men to ask for what they want.   The WAGE Project will pilot $tart $mart Campus Initiative on 11 college campuses in the fall of 2007 to empower young women starting their careers to avoid the gender wage gap.  This initiative will provide women who are college juniors and seniors with knowledge and skills when approaching the job market to negotiate salaries and benefits to receive fair and realistic compensation. Follow-up coaching and mentoring will be provided by volunteers from collaborating partners. 

$tart $mart Campus Initiative will cover the following topics in a one or two workshop series:

The personal consequences of the gender wage gap: what a $1.2 million loss over one's working lifetime means.

Resources for benchmarking reasonable salaries and benefits: learn about job titles, their functions and salary ranges, the impact of market realities on salaries; compare skills and accomplishments to job requirements and market to target a realistic salary range.

Negotiation: how to aim high and be realistic; practice negotiation through role play exercises.

Know your bottom line: develop a "bare bones" budget to pay rent, buy groceries, repay student loans, and other basic expenses.

After the pilot efforts have been evaluated, The WAGE Project will replicate the initiative on college campuses across the country in partnership with local collaborators.  The model will also be adapted and piloted for use with all working women in partnership with local YWCAs, BPW and AAUW chapters, State Commissions on Women, and other grassroots organizations serving low-income women.

Other workshops being developed and made available in 2008 are:

Professionally $mart- These are workshops for women in specific professions. The WAGE Project has been asked to develop a workshop for benchmarking and salary negotiation for women in academia; another for women scientists, a third for women librarians and another for women attorneys. These workshops will be piloted in the next six months and focus on raises, job changes, pay equity salary adjustments, and raises associated with promotions. As we progress, we will also consider other professions that are suggested to us.

Return $mart- These are benchmarking and salary negotiation workshops for women who are returning to work after being at home. Women who dropped out of full time work for a few years to raise children are one audience. Women who have to return to the workforce because they became widowed, their husbands became disabled, or their marriages ended in divorce or separation or other return-to-work women can benefit from these workshops.

Working $mart- This workshop focuses on women already in the workforce who are facing discrimination and other job related issues. Benchmarking and salary negotiating will be covered in this workshop as well as other subjects that will enable this group to not only receive fair pay, promotions and benefits, but give them tools to help further their careers and address work issues successfully. This workshop should be available early spring of 2008.

We have collaborated with Salary.com, and they have developed a salary calculator that sits on our website www.wageproject.org. This is used to provide women with the salary ranges for jobs with their skills in various areas of the country. It also calculates actual salaries and discusses benefits. The calculator is used in all workshops, but can be helpful to any women considering salary negotiation.

The WAGE Project believes that reaching women with valid information and resources at the beginning of their careers will help eliminate the wage gap and enable women to reach for top salaries. We also believe that no one can negotiate until they understand their worth, their needs, the going salaries in jobs of their choice and understanding how benefits and deductions will affect their pay check. Knowledge gives us the power to ask for what we deserve.

For additional information about the $tart $mart Campus programs and their sites or any of the other $mart workshops, please contact Annie Houle, National Director of Community Initiatives, at ahoule@wageproject.org or by phone at 207-899-2883.

Annie Houle, Founder of the Maine Wage Project, is now National
 Director of WAGE Clubs and Community Initiatives for the WAGE
Project. For further information about the Project contact Annie at
ahoule@wageproject.org or visit the web site at www.wageproject.org

top

For more Business articles >>