Do You Get Paid Enough?

If there's one question every working person has asked at least once, it's "Am I getting paid what I'm worth?"

It doesn't matter what job you do or when you last got a raise. It's human nature to wonder "Is this a fair wage?"

It's not just a normal question to ask - it's a vital one. Organizations make it hard to know whether your pay level is on a par with people you work with and people who do your job in other companies.

Now that traditional taboo subjects like politics, religion, drugs and sex have morphed into ordinary coffee talk at work, the one topic that is still off limits at many organizations is pay.

Some employers tell their team members "Don't discuss salary with your co-workers."

They make it a termination-worthy offense to talk dollars and cents. That's ridiculous. We hire adults, after all.

But some organizations forbid the staff from talking about their paychecks nonetheless.

You might be walking down the hall when someone asks you "So, are you gonna interview for that Project Manager position?"

"No, I don't think so," you reply. "I talked to the hiring manager. The salary is a little low."

"What is the salary for that job?" asks your friend.

"It's -- er, text me later and I'll tell you," you say, because you're not supposed to talk about salaries at work. You're forty-five years old and accustomed to talking about whatever you feel like discussing at any moment. Can we justify muzzling our employees on the topic of pay when the only imaginable reason to maintain the no-pay-talk policy is to keep employees from learning whether their own salaries are equitable?

Here's a human alternative: tell the staff "Talk about whatever you want. If you have questions about your comp plan, please talk to me about it rather than someone who can't do anything to address your concern."

I encourage you to check your pay level once a year. Knowing your market value is a first step to taking control of your career. It's way better than accepting a new job offer or promotion at whatever random pay level a supervisor dreams up or a chart in HR dictates.

Let's answer the question "Do you get paid enough?" three ways -- at the tactical Ground level, the strategic Hilltop level and the vision-setting Cloud level of altitude.

On the ground, we'll use Payscale to compare your salary to what your counterparts are earning down the block and around the corner.

Payscale will ask you questions about the job you're pricing, either one you're pursuing in a job search or the job you have now. To get the free salary report Payscale offers, you have to tell the database what you're earning, if you're working now, and share other kinds of information about the job you're in. That's how the site keeps its data current, and it only takes a couple of minutes to run through the list of questions.

When you're done you'll get the scoop on how you stack up salary-wise against counterparts in your geographic area.

This ground-level salary check should be on your annual to-do list along with updating your resume and your LinkedIn profile. Here are two more salary questions to consider before you put the question "Do I get paid enough?" to bed.

At the Hilltop level of altitude, your question is "What am I worth beyond my job description?" You happen to be doing Job X right now and Payscale told you that Job X pays $Y. That's fine, but why should that detail limit your income? You can do any number of jobs. Some of them pay more than what you're doing now, and some pay less.

If you want salary leverage, you've got to understand the business pain you solve and what it costs employers. Way too many working people are completely removed from the dollar value of their labor - they couldn't tell you the financial impact of their work on a bet. That's horrifying, because when we lose track of the value of our work we're agreeing that someone else can and should determine our income and our future.

To get a feel for your market value using the cost-of-business-pain model, try a thought experiment. What terrible things could happen if a person less awesome than you takes your job - and what are the costs of those calamities to your employer?

Everything we teach at Human Workplace is pain-based, because business pain is the only leverage a job-seeker or consultant has. (Luckily, it's plenty.)

When the 2008 recession hit, technical writers and graphic designers called us. "Companies that used to pay $60 an hour are only paying $40 now," they said.

It's awful when you have no cost-of-pain metric to negotiate from. You're a victim of anybody's desire to save a few bucks.

When the person in charge of contractors calls you in her quest to compile a list of approved vendors and asks "Can you adjust your hourly rate down to $40? That's what we're paying now" and you say "No I can't, but I wish you all the best with that project" and you get the work anyway, then you know something about pain.

I can't imagine going to work without that knowledge, at any age.

The Cloud level salary question is the most expansive one --- far removed from your current job description, and focused on your vision for yourself. Here we take away the requirement that you must trade your time for money.

If you started your own business, you could potentially earn many times what the salary chart on the wall in HR suggests.

That's risky, though, isn't it?

Not necessarily. What if you moved into your entrepreneurial venture gradually while working for someone else? What if you launched a side business, putting a second oar in the water?

What if your part-time business had the side effect of raising your market value in your full-time work arena? Don't you owe it to yourself to get beyond the pay chart and create your own valuation for your talents in 2014?

Your Cloud level salary is entirely up to you; it's a matter of getting off the spreadsheet and perhaps off the pay grid entirely. If that sounds scary, don't panic. You don't have to do it today or ever (maybe not ever - the world is moving fast in the direction we're-all-independents, so I don't want to overpromise, particularly if you're under 40.)

It's good, though, to know that there are alternatives to the formal pay grade and the sporadic salary bump -- great, meaty alternatives that can make the most of the magnificent talents you bring and support everything you want to accomplish on this earth. Could you investigate those alternatives in 2014?

Download the free Cheat Sheet Do You Get Paid Enough? here!

Liz Ryan is CEO and Founder of Human Workplace. Liz is a former Fortune 500 HR vice president and the world's most widely-read career and workplace advisor.

Our mission at Human Workplace is to reinvent work for people.

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