How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap
&gt; When it comes to making pay decisions, we anchor too much on someone’s current salary instead of what the job is worth. Imagine hiring two accountants. One (call her Eliza) currently makes $50,000 and the other (Alexander) makes $58,000. And let’s say the average accountant in your company makes $60,000. It feels natural to offer Alexander a salary of $60,000, just like everyone else gets. But for most managers, it feels wrong to give Eliza the same salary. After all, that’s a $10,000 raise! Wouldn’t that be unfair to Alexander, who only got a $2,000 raise? And why not save a few bucks by paying people based on their past salaries?<p>What? No. Who thinks this way? The role at your company has a $60k salary. People you hire for that role get $60k, no matter how much they were being paid in the past.<p>Is this really a difficult concept for people?