Reddit CEO Ellen Pao has been generating a few headlines this month. First up was the bold move of taking her former employer, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Kleiner Perkins, to court for sexual discrimination.

This show of defiance has led to an outpouring of support, with many hailing her tech’s new feminist hero. I have greatly admired the determination with which she has faced this case, a sentiment shared by a number of women in her industry, who joined forces to take out a full page advert in the Palo Alto Daily Post reading “Thanks Ellen”.

While Pao may have lost the battle, her landmark case shone a much-needed media spotlight on gender discrimination in the industry.

Fast forward to this week, and Pao is again making headlines, this time taking a stand against salary negotiations in an interview with the Wall St Journal. “As part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair,” she said; going on to explain that “men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalised when they do negotiate.”



While I applaud the intention behind Pao’s new initiative, I have to say that there is something about it that makes me very uncomfortable. Communication is one of the most, if not the most important factor in any relationship, be it personal or professional. By stopping employees from starting a dialogue about money, Reddit risks creating a company culture where the more senior leaders hold all the cards, while more junior staff have little or no voice.

Natalie Reynolds, negotiation specialist and managing director of advantageSPRING, believes that removing this dialogue could have significant negative repercussions for the company in the long term.

“The fact is negotiation is in our DNA and we have been doing it since the dawn of civilisation,” says Reynolds.

“There is no denying that many people find it uncomfortable or challenging but it is a mistake to avoid it completely. Reddit may find that both male and female candidates will be put off from applying to join the firm or may feel frustrated that they were unable to influence their package, possibly resulting in a demotivated workforce.”

The cynical side of me can’t help but see how much a salary negotiation ban could benefit the bottom line: is this nothing more than smart accounting dressed up as a gender issue? Publicly announcing a freeze in starting salaries could be career suicide. Say you’re doing it for the sake of diversity and it suddenly becomes not only acceptable but something to be celebrated.

Pao doesn’t specify whether she’s doing away with all salary negotiations, or just in the case of new employees, but neither presents an ideal situation: just do away with negotiation for new starters and the perceived inequality may rear its head once again as soon as the next financial year comes around. Do away with salary negotiations altogether and you have a small, elite group of senior leaders making decisions on the worth of an entire workforce without actually giving them the right to answer back.

The right to ask for the salary we deserve isn’t a lot to ask. Yes, there will be some who are braver, louder and more adept at arguing their case than others. But the final decision, as always, will remain with the management – a management that, if doing its job well, should know the difference between someone who deserves to be rewarded and someone who is all big words and empty promises.

Taking away the right to reply also means that the perspective of the management is the only one that is heard. “It is essential to remember that fairness is subjective and what constitutes ‘fair’ can differ from person to person,” Reynolds points out. “A ‘fair’ offer from Reddit might look anything but ‘fair’ from the potential employee’s perspective.”

Above all, I take issue with this for the same reason that I don’t believe in quotas: it focuses on thwarting the male advantage and enforcing ingrained stereotypes, such as the overriding view that women can’t negotiate, or are less ambitious than men. Why not focus instead on changing those stereotypes?

“If the research tells us women don’t like to negotiate, let’s give them the tools, techniques and confidence to know how to do it well,” Reynolds emphasises. “If the assumption is that women don’t negotiate hard enough, give them the insight and ability to plan effectively, present well-structured proposals and explore and develop alternatives.”

Another approach would be to focus on company culture and instigate a better appraisal and reward system, helping more introverted members of staff to get the recognition they deserve. This is a skills gap issue, a confidence issue and a company culture issue – not just a gender issue. Until it is treated as such we’re never going to get past the damaging bias and stereotyping that genuinely holds back talented women.

It seems to me that, increasingly, companies are trying to level the playing field by looking at what they can take away, instead of celebrating and developing what they have. Far from creating true equality, this merely takes one inequality and morphs it into another.