3 Reasons you should tell your coworkers how much money you make

As my husband was growing his finance career, the year-end bonus became a pivotal moment: to see how much his hard work translated into cash. And rather than rushing to tell me the news, he and his close peers would gather at a local bar on bonus day to share their numbers. They wanted to know who got paid how much.

“You share your bonus number with your colleagues?” I asked in disbelief. “Why would you do that?”

“We want to know the range of bonuses given out,” he shared. “This also helps us understand how we can get paid more next time around and do better.”

When I started my career, I remember a mentor once telling me, “Don’t talk about religion, sex, or politics at work,” she cautioned. “And don’t ever tell anyone how much you make.” While some of those corporate rules have changed, many of us still remain reluctant to talk about how much we make. According to one study, only 19% of employees have asked coworkers about their salaries. And most, 68%, say they avoid talking about money at work at all. Despite this reluctance to mention finances, many say that they do want to talk about pay at work: 56% say they wish discussing salaries wasn’t taboo. So this begs the question: If we can’t talk about our salaries openly, how can we be motivated to work harder, avoid miscommunications and misunderstandings about salaries, and ultimately close the gender and racial pay gaps?

If you want to get better about talking about money, and understanding your earning potential, here’s the case for why you should talk to your coworkers about how much you make:

Find out if you are being paid fairly and equitably

You may feel you are being paid less than your coworkers, especially compared to recent external hires. You may feel that your company is taking advantage of you, overworking and underpaying you. You may feel that you received the lowest salary increase and got the worst bonus ever this year. And these are all feelings; we need to move from feelings to facts to understand if there’s an issue with our pay or not.

According to the1935 National Labor Relations Act, employees have a right to talk to each other about their salaries. While companies may discourage it, it is not illegal for employees to discuss their compensation with each other. If you do decide to talk to your coworkers about your salary, you should be prepared for what you might hear.

First, you want to make sure you are discussing the topic of pay with trusted colleagues, or risk having your salary being gossiped about. Second, if you find out you are being paid fairly and equitably versus your peers, you can then put your mind and ease, and go back to making an impact at work. Third, if you find out you are being paid less than peers who are doing the same job as you, be prepared to work through feelings of anger, jealousy, or resentment. While they could be better at negotiating, they also could have experiences you don’t have and may be performing better at their job than you. Be prepared to consider all of that before discussing your pay with others at work.

Discover what’s really important to leadership

If your coworker is getting paid more than you, and you are both at the same level, this is a moment to also get curious and discover what’s important to leadership. In my husband’s case, finding out what bonuses others were paid had him reflect on two key things: first, his coworker’s performance versus his own performance. He could be self-aware and think about what he could be doing better, and what he could learn from his coworker. Second, he could acknowledge that his coworker’s bonus was about their performance, but also what deals they were placed on. How much they got paid was also about what work was ultimately important and seen as valuable to leadership.

As priorities continue to shift for your company in an uncertain market, make sure you are working on business deals, initiatives, and projects important to leadership. You may not have full control over this. If you have the power to pause or stop work that’s no longer relevant, do that, or make the case to your boss on why you shouldn’t be working on that initiative anymore. And if you have the opportunity and bandwidth to raise your hand to work on a project that’s of importance to leadership, go for it. Discovering what leadership thinks is valuable work during this time is also a way to make sure you are positioned to get compensated well.

Use the data to advocate for your own pay

As I discuss in my book Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths to Transform Your Workplace, I was raised not to talk about money. My parents taught me to never ask someone how much they make or to discuss how much you make, or to ask how much something cost or was worth. It wasn’t until well into my adulthood that I discovered how much my father made working as an executive and what my mother made as a teacher. It took me years to break the silence and learn how to talk about money. And the more I started to read about money, to talk about money, to think about money, over time it slowly became easier to talk about my own compensation. 

Talking to your coworkers about your salary can help give you data points to help advocate for your own pay. That doesn’t mean you should walk into your boss’s office and say, “Well I discovered Mita is making this much, and so I should have my salary increased by  $10,000 dollars.”

But it does provide another data point into how your compensation is determined, which includes what projects you are working on, what your performance is, the pay range for your current role, your expertise and experiences, what the external market is offering for your role, and more. You can use the information you receive from your coworkers to have a productive conversation with your boss when advocating for your pay.

If we want to create fair and equitable workplaces for everyone, we need to get comfortable talking about how much money we each make. The pros of talking about our salaries with our coworkers just might outweigh the cons, so we all can feel comfortable and confident and know our own worth.

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