Microsoft CEO’s advice to women about raises triggers sharp reactions and plenty of suggestions

The advice that the head of Microsoft Corp. gave women about asking for a pay raise — in essence, he said don’t — triggered sharp criticism Friday but also sparked good ideas on the topic.

Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft, dropped his bomb Thursday at an industry conference celebrating women in computing. And, though he backed off his words, the damage was done.

“It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along,” Nadella said, according to a webcast of the event.

Nadella had said he agreed with the finding of a key Microsoft executive who had told him that human resources tends to be inefficient in the short term but gets things right in the long term.

Not asking for a raise, he said, might work in women’s favor: “That, I think, might be one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise have. Because that’s good karma. It’ll come back because somebody’s going to know that’s the kind of person that I want to trust. That’s the kind of person that I want to really give more responsibility to. And in the long-term efficiency, things catch up.”

Watch and listen here (advance the video to 1:34:00) as moderator Maria M. Klawe, president of the Harvey Mudd College and a board member at Microsoft, asked for Nadella’s advice to women who are uncomfortable seeking promotions and career advancement.

Klawa quickly rejected his answer, politely telling him that “this is one of the very few things I disagree with you on.” Her comment was followed by a round of applause from the audience.

Nancy Mellard at the CBIZ business services company, which is based in Kansas City, said she stood “shocked” in front of her TV Friday morning when she saw coverage of Nadella’s comments.

“I found myself asking, ‘Is he really that out of touch?’” said Mellard, general counsel of the employee services division at CBIZ. “Everything in me wants to say it’s changing, that he’s an outlier.”

Unfortunately, she added, the ideas he expressed remain “pervasive” in America’s corporate suites. And that should be a wake-up call to women in the workplace.

“This would be, really, a message to me. I am going to stand up. I am going to understand how to promote myself. I am going to take on the responsibility of asking for that promotion, asking for that raise,” Mellard said.

The Central Exchange in Kansas City, where Mellard is board chairwoman, offers programs that help women prepare to do that.

CiCi Rojas, president and chief executive officer of the Central Exchange, said women need to become more comfortable in asking. They need to know it is OK to ask — for more pay, greater responsibility, additional time off, whatever — but they must be ready to defend the request and negotiate the outcome.

Nadella’s advice struck Rojas as odd.

“I thought it was funny just because of the reference to karma,” Rojas said. “There are some things you can’t leave to chance.”

Career adviser and author Amiee Cohen said in an email that many women need advice because they aren’t comfortable in negotiations.

“Part of the problem is that women are never taught how to effectively negotiate, and don’t do it very often,” Cohen said. “The reality is that women don’t like to ask.”

Among her suggestions is to negotiate frequently, for example, by building skills by seeking bargains at garage sales before taking on a more meaningful negotiation with the boss.

Women particularly face a challenge in seeking higher pay. Studies repeatedly show that men earn more than women for doing the same work across many industries.

For employees of many large companies, there may be less room to talk raises. Many have structured pay grades, or ranges, so employees know where their salary fits within the grade for the job they’re doing.

Jeannine Strandjord, a retired Sprint executive who now serves on the board of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, said in an email that Nadella’s comments “didn’t sound so off base to me” because he comes from a structured compensation environment at Microsoft. Jobs are slotted into pay ranges.

“In that structure, no one really needs to go in and ask for a raise. They can certainly talk to their boss during their evaluation if they think they should be doing better in the salary area,” Strandjord said.

Still, Nadella tried to take back his comments, in part with a post on Twitter several hours after his onstage conversation was over.

Nadella went further in an email to Microsoft employees on Thursday night, saying “I answered that question completely wrong.”

In it, Nadella said “men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it’s deserved, Maria’s advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask.”

Nadella is not known for being tone deaf on women’s issues. At the beginning of the discussion Thursday, Klawe, a prominent advocate for women in tech, she said she “adored” Nadella, calling him “amazing.” For most of his time on stage discussing a wide range of issues, the audience seemed to approve, applauding frequently.

Still, his other comments at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing underscored why many see technology companies as workplaces that are difficult to navigate or even unfriendly for women and minorities. Tech companies, particularly the engineering ranks, are overwhelmingly male, white and Asian.

Criticized for their lack of diversity, major companies say they are trying to address the problem with programs such as employee training sessions and by participating in initiatives meant to introduce girls to coding.

Twenty-nine percent of Microsoft’s employees are women, according to figures the Redmond, Wash.-based company released earlier this month. Its technical and engineering staff and its management are 17 percent female.

That’s roughly comparable to diversity data released by other big tech companies this year.

When Klawe responded to Nadella’s comment about raises, she described her discomfort negotiating her own salary.

When she was offered the position of dean of engineering at Princeton, Klawe said, she began discussing her salary only after accepting the job. The result, she estimated, was that she received about $50,000 less a year than she should have.

Klawe said she had also poorly handled her pay discussions for her current post at Harvey Mudd College, saying she did not protest when she was offered less money than she thought appropriate.

“Do not be as stupid as I was,” she said, advising audience members to do their homework on salary information and first practice asking for a raise with people they trust.

This story was originally published October 10, 2014 at 9:37 PM with the headline "Microsoft CEO’s advice to women about raises triggers sharp reactions and plenty of suggestions."