Museum Salary Equity: If You're A Woman, What Does It Mean?

2016 compensation report.  With a $374 price tag, it's beyond the reach of most individuals, but know that many nonprofit associations publish statewide statistics for the nonprofit sector.  Use them. Find the job area you're interested in and look at the salary range. Then use the MIT Living Wage Calculator to figure out how expensive it will be to live in a particular area. An acquaintance of mine is a finalist for an assistant director position at a big non-profit in Washington, D.C. It's a chance to work with a mentor and she is one of three semi-finalists. She's thrilled as she should be. Using the MIT Calculator, she will need to make $32,000 just to meet her expenses (fifty percent of which will go towards housing), and that list of expenses does not include school loans or lunches out or drinks after work or incidentally an apartment with a high charm quotient. If you are looking at jobs in less competitive markets, your living wage will be lower, but so will your expenses. If you already have a job, but are looking for a new one, you will want all the same information; however, when you get to the interview stage, don't provide your previous salary information. The relative wealth and culture of your previous employer and its failure to pay you adequately or not isn't relevant when it comes to your job performance. (If you're lucky enough to live or interview in Massachusetts, the new pay equity law which goes into effect in 2018 will prevent employers from asking about your previous salary.) And, if you are asked, all your research into cost of living will pay off when you turn the question around and tell the interviewer the salary range you are interested in. Whatever you do, don't start to negotiate and than back down. There is only one sweet spot, and unless there are a dozen family and personal reasons to say yes, don't. Your dream job won't be your dream job if the only rent you can afford is a 40-minute commute away from work, so be prepared to say no thank you if you don't get the offer you want. What about women who suddenly discover they're grossly underpaid? Say you run into the man who had your job before you and find out he was paid considerably more than you are. What do you do? Don't rush into anyone's office. Take a breath. Pull all your research together: for the working world, for the field, and for your organization. Ask for a meeting about your job performance. Presuming the results are positive, then reveal your discovery. If your board, CFO, director or HR person says no to a 20-percent raise in a year (assuming that's the gap) see if you can get it guaranteed at 10-percent annually over two years. Remember, your base salary haunts you forever, prompting future raises, driving Social Security and retirement packages. If they say no absolutely, clearly it's a red flag. And what if you're a board member, director, CFO or head of HR? We presume you believe in gender equity; and that you want to govern and or lead an equitable organization. What can you do? Figure out what the salary imbalance is across the staff, and how long it might take you to even things out. Create a values statement and a wage equity statement so gender equity becomes part of organizational policy. And let people know. Issue a press release, do a session at your regional service organization's annual meeting. Taking a stand on these issues is rare. Heck, even acknowledging them is rare. How could it possibly hurt a museum, historic house or heritage organization if women knew it was committed to paying equitably? If the worst that might happen is that you are besieged with applications from bright, talented women (and men) who want to work for you, is that a problem? But we have huge capital problems and deferred maintenance you say? Maybe, but if your staff is unfocused and surreptitiously looking for work during the work day, they aren't happy and you're not getting your money's worth. Get the best staff you can afford. What staff member does less for an organization after a salary bump, especially one tied to universal values? Is your organization committed to a gender equitable pay scale? Write and tell us your story. Joan Baldwin