How companies can address unconscious bias in the workplace

Mandi Woodruff-Santos, YF Contributor, Cohost of Brown Ambition Podcast, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss fair wages for women and ways companies can address the bias against women regarding wages.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: A recent Glassdoor survey found that fewer women than men are bargaining their salaries. But are salary negotiating skills different for men and women and should they be? Joining us now to talk about it is Mandi Woodruff-Santos. She is a Yahoo Finance contributor and co-host of the podcast Brown Ambition. Mandi, it's great to see you again. Welcome to the show.

So you say-- I want to start with this, you say there are two big flaws in the way we often speak to women about negotiating and earning more. Outline what those flaws are for us.

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: I mean, honestly I'm really sick and tired of people telling women to negotiate more because the fact is that even if we do negotiate, companies still have a lot of issues paying us equal and fair wages. Women have penalties against them. There's such a thing as unconscious bias, which by virtue of being a woman and especially a woman of color, when I walk into a room or I'm across from a hiring manager negotiating, they may not see me as worthy of a higher salary or worthy of that promotion that I'm asking for.

So the major flaw I think is that we are asking women to change themselves, we are asking women to take our advice. Here's how you can negotiate better. On what we should be doing is telling companies, here are the systems you can put in place because you're the people with power, not the job candidate, not the workers. You know your budget, it's up to you guys to make sure that we're being paid what we're worth.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: OK, so then let's tick through some of the ways you think companies can be more aware of this and can maybe make changes internally to help both men and women when it comes to getting a fair shot at a higher wage.

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: Absolutely. It all starts with who is in the room when you are making hiring decisions. Now, I've been a hiring manager myself, I've hired a team of over 30 people, and I always had checks and balances for myself. Meaning, I had other folks weighing in on candidates. I had other folks helping me weed down my top three, my top five and then I would get their feedback.

If you're having people hire workers and they're only listening to their own opinions, they don't have any other sounding boards, that's where bias can creep in. For example, you've got a white male manager making a hiring decision and he sees two candidates, his internal bias unconsciously may be driving him to pick another white male candidate. But if you have a diverse cohort of hiring managers altogether, you can call them a committee or a board, that can help prevent that kind of bias from creeping in. That's just one way you can help.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. Well now as a Black woman who has been on both sides of the negotiating table, what have some of your real life experiences been and how does that sort of inform the way you manage now?

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: Absolutely. I mean, even as I became a senior director over the course of my career, I was often looked to with this hair, and this face, and being the age that I am, I'd walk into rooms and people would assume I was an assistant or an intern. In fact, I was mistaken for an assistant one time by a senior leader at my company. Honestly as Black women, we can't let those types of microaggressions get us down because what are we going to do? We can't just live.

I mean, we have to work, right, to provide for our families. We really have to develop a thick skin. That being said, it made me be a much better manager having endured those kinds of microaggressions. I know very intimately what it's like to be a Black woman on the other side of that bargaining table, right?

So when I went toward hiring my team and putting a team together, I personally was invested in getting a very diverse group of people together. And I personally thought to be sure that we were reviewing compensation on a regular basis. I don't think enough companies are doing this. Actually looking at how are we paying people, and are we doing a good job paying them their market rate for where they're located for their skill set?

And when we're not paying them fairly according to market rate, what are we doing about it? I'm very lucky that I worked for a company that would have these types of regular compensation reviews and we would actually do something about it. And that is something that's rare and I wish happened more often.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. Mandi Woodruff-Santos, some good tips there, especially for the companies for a change. Good to see you. Thanks so much.