0:00

♪ Work Feels Intro Jingle ♪

Together 0:04

I'm Edda I'm Ryan, and this is work feels.

Edda 0:12

We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which we work and live on and pay our respects to indigenous elders past and present. Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

0:30

♪ Work Feels Jingle ♪

Ryan 0:32

All right team on this episode we are covering money!

Edda 0:38

The big dollar dollar bills. We decided to do this episode because everything is getting expensive and it got us thinking about our salary and how our salaries haven't really risen that much in the last decade. However, the woollies bill seems to have gone through the roof.

Ryan 0:59

And while all us plebs are struggling at the woollies checkout, CEOs around the world are making a killing and enjoying the fruits of our labour.

Edda 1:08

Yeah, what the fuck? Well, not every CEO, obviously, but we are just talking about the big Dawgs. Let me read out a list of the names of the highest earning CEOs in Australia.

Edda 1:26

Shimara, Victor, Michael, Gregory, Roslyn, Ronald, Paul, Steve, Mike Todd, Sandeep, Elsa, David, Kevin, Andrew, Robert, Ross, Colin and the list goes on.

Ryan 1:40

And what do they all have in common? They're all men.

Edda 1:45

Unbelievable. Actually aside from the number one earning CEO in Australia, Shamara, the legend, is a woman and she is leading Macquarie Group and just taking in the big bucks and I'm not mad about it.

Edda 2:06

Or maybe I am.

Together 2:11

[ Laughter ]

Edda 2:11

It is great to see women at the top of that list. But literally every other single person on the 50 highest paid CEOs in Australia is a guy

Ryan 2:21

That is wild.

Edda 2:24

Anor.

Edda 2:30

I know.

Edda 2:32

But did you know that there are more people leading the ASX 200 companies by the name of Andrew than there are women in total. That's a stat from 2018. I've got latest numbers. In 2021, which are my most latest numbers, we had 12 Andrews 11, Michaels and nine women. . Anyway, the person who dug up the Andrew statistic is Conrad Liveris, an economist and nonprofit executive and we are super lucky to have him as our special guest on this episode.

Ryan 3:17

So before we get stuck into the interview, we have a listener story for you. This story comes from a woman working in mining engineering, she takes us through a pay rise experience she had at work, how it was handled by her manager and reflects on some of the emotions that come with a gender pay gap assessment. This is her story.

Bronya 3:36

TI am an engineer working in the mining sector, which is a heavily male dominated industry. In 2022, women made up only 16% of the whole workforce, according to the federal government's Workplace Gender Equality agency. This incident happened to me about six years ago now. I had been working in a job for only three months at the time, so I was relatively new to the company and role. One morning I was asked into my manager's office. He asked me to sit down and started with simple, small chat, asking how I was enjoying the work in my new role and the site. After we got through the pleasantries, he starts telling me how the company we work for really values diversity, and how they are striving to be great advocate for women in the industry. Although I'm a bit confused because I don't know where the conversation was going at this point, I'm pretty happy to be hearing this from my manager. He then starts to tell me that the company has recently undergone a gender pay gap analysis. He said that the review found that there was some pay discrepancies and the company was looking to correct them. He hands me an envelope with a letter in it saying that I was receiving a pay rise. My manager continues to say that the review looked at the entire company and compared all personnel in the same role with the same experience. He continues to say that women were not the only people receiving pay rises, and some men were also receiving a raise after the evaluation. The conversation finished, I thanked my manager, and left. I left that conversation feeling very stunned. Obviously, it was a great initiative that the company had undertaken. But it was not a great feeling being the one who had been underpaid for the past few months. I also couldn't understand how this had happened. Since I only signed my contract and negotiated my salary a few months before. So consciously or subconsciously, the company decided that my work was not as valuable as the males doing the exact same job as me. A condition in my contract stipulated that I was not allowed to discuss my salary with colleagues at the time. I also felt embarrassed that I had been the one being underpaid. So I did not speak about the pay rise with any of my other colleagues. I had no idea who else had been affected by this and it was never discussed on site publicly. So those who were not affected probably had no idea of the review. No apology was ever made to those who were underpaid. No renumeration was given for the length of time a person was underpaid for.

3:50

♪ Work Feels Jingle ♪

Edda 6:54

Our special guests for this episode is Conrad Liveris. Conrad is an economist and consultant and has worked with small businesses through to global tech giants on issues including flexible work, restructuring, diversity and inclusion, renumeration and performance.

Ryan 7:11

The ABC has called him one of Australia's leading employment and workplace experts and his knowledge on labour market economics is sought by decision makers including government ministers and listed companies. Conrad's research and analysis looks at the changing nature of employment breaking it down by gender and age to find the story of contemporary Australia.

7:37

♪ Work Feels Jingle ♪

Ryan 7:38

Hey, everyone, we're here with our special guests. Conrad Liveris, welcome to work fields.

Conrad 7:43

Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me.

Edda 7:47

Great to have you here. On this episode, we are going to discuss the ins' and outs' of what determines our salary, how the economy can impact what we're earning, what's going on inside companies, and what you can do to advocate for a better and fairer salary. But before we get started, Conrad, can you tell us what gets you passionate about workplace matters, market economics and data sets?

Conrad 8:16

Well, obviously, all of those things just make me such a thrilling and exciting person to be around.

Together 8:24

[ Laugher ]

Conrad 8:26

Behind every statistic, there's a story. The unemployment rate, which at the moment is 3.5%, is actually telling us something about the lived experience of people on the ground, and that's what I find so interesting. If you want to understand, whether it's a city or a region, a state, the country wherever, you actually need to understand the economy. That's what's going on on the ground and that's really interesting to me because it's not about the numbers so much as interesting as they are. For me, it's actually about what that means for the people on the ground. I also just love a good chart.nicely put together chart, it's really pretty.

Edda 9:12

So you prefer charts over Excel spreadsheets?

Conrad 9:16

They work in tandem? To get a good chart, you got to know how to play with Excel. So you need them together. I spent like a not insignificant amount of my time on Tik Tok, I'm not a creator, I'm just a consumer, but there are all of this frickin amazing excel tiktoks, which are just Excel hacks and stuff like that. Which is amazing!

Ryan 9:48

I did not think there was Excel Tik Tok.

Ryan 9:51

Yeah.

9:52

[ Laughter ]

Conrad 9:54

I was showing people the other day and they were like, this is pretty neiche, and I was like, it's fun. This is really not a great exposition on how interesting I am. Maybe it's just too accurate is what I should. But there we go!

Ryan 10:16

April. Data

Ryan 10:19

Data sets and graphics really do it for you.

Conrad 10:24

They are one of the ways to my heart.

Together 10:26

[ Laugher ]

Conrad 10:28

There have been many times I've been on a date where I've been like, 'Hey, I've got a chart about this'. Maybe it explains why I'm single at the moment.

Together 10:43

[ Laugher ]

Ryan 10:45

Well, it says Conrad is single, you heard it here first.

Conrad 10:49

And if you'd like a chat, I'm ready.

Ryan 10:54

All right to jump right in, lets pick up an understanding on the people behind an economy and unemployment rat. So we'll start with the basics. Inflation. We've been hearing about it constantly. It's been all across the headlines. In simple terms, what is inflation and what makes it go up and down?

Conrad 11:15

Well, so there are a few different ways that inflation can go up and down. What we're experiencing at the moment is just massive demand. So during Coronavirus, governments all across the world and in Australia flushed the economy with money. That was what we thought was the right thing to do at the time. So the federal government and the state governments were pouring money in things like job keeper and job seeker and started pushing forward a whole bunch of infrastructure projects. We're talking billions of dollars, and it was the largest expenditure from governments in peacetime. It was a huge amount of money, because quite seriously, no one knew what was going to happen. It had been 100 years, since the last pandemic, there'd been a whole bunch of economic changes. So everyone was kind of figuring it out as we went along. What policymakers did is they were like, let's just go hard on all of this. That was what we thought was the right thing to do and, largely, it was. What we're seeing now is the rub out of all of that. We're seeing the flow on effects. There was just so much money that was pumped into the economy and now it's still kind of around. There's never been more jobs in Australia, it's absolutely gangbusters the unemployment rate. It's so infrequent for it to be three point something. The underemployment rate is pretty low at 6.1%. So the unemployment rate is 3.5% and the demand for jobs is really across the board. One of the things that's really telling to me is that there's a huge demand for administrative office workers, like receptionists personal assistants, and things like that. That is going absolutely bananas and has been since late 2020. To me, this is a bit of a driver that other sorts of parts of the economy, and a whole variety of industries, are under so much pressure. You say it also like in construction. Have you tried getting a tradie lately, at least to where I am in Western Australia. It's so hard. This is kind of what we're seeing. There's just still billions of dollars going through the economy and the other thing is, is that we've all got personal money. Savings are at a pretty good point and they grew during the during 2020. So we're spending. It's all about the demand at the moment. There is also this small other issue as well. I don't know if you've heard about called the war in Ukraine which is causing some issues as well. There's also some issues in China: they're really the production side of things, but it's really the demand.

Edda 14:20

Would it be correct to say that the government gives us a bunch of money, and as we have disposable incomes, we have more money to buy the things from the businesses, so we're throwing money into businesses, and then businesses have more money. So they're like, well, we can have more jobs, creating more jobs, leading to a talent shortage.

Conrad 14:51

That's entirely right. The government said, here's, here's your money, and we said, 'Great, we're gonna spend it' and then the businesses were so unprepared. Every organisation was just so unprepared for the amount of demand that was there that they were like, 'oh, what?'

Together 15:09

[ Laugher ]

Conrad 15:10

Then Coronavirus in China was so hectic, that actually getting many of the goods that we do get from China we're so hard to get. Let's say that Edda wanted a brick for a house and it costs $100. That's the only thing that came to my mind. But then Ryan, you were like, 'but I also need a brick for a house'. The builder then says 'well, sorry, Edda is in first she's paying 100 bucks'. So Ryan says 'I'll pay you 110 bucks'. So that's kind of what's happened. The builder then goes back to editor and say, 'Well, you've got to do 110 bucks otherwise Ryan's gonna get the get it done first'. So that's the issue that's driving up inflation.

Ryan 16:12

Being an architect and my, my dad's a builder...

Conrad 16:15

So you understand bricks?

Ryan 16:19

Totally. I was like, $100 per brick not far off at the moment.

Together 16:24

[ Laugher ]

Ryan 16:25

But yes that is probably one of the largest issues facing our industry is the supply issue of materials, and the labour to construct things.

Ryan 16:38

This also then stops people wanting to build and construct which causes massive issues as well.

Conrad 16:47

Exactly. That's going to be the next challenge. There are going to be people who are priced out of the market in all of this. So because not everyone puts everything on their credit card, and good on him. But because there's a reasonable possibility that there will be a debt crisis and personal debt crisis for all of these sort of things in the next few years. I'm a big fan of Facebook groups. You can go into all of these chunky builders, A Current Affair sort of stuff, where everyone is sharing all of the issues about builders, and they haven't had anything built in about a year. And thats only going to get longer, because who's gonna do it like this? Everyone is so busy. Building and construction is a really good example of all of these sorts of things, because everyone understands it. It's applicable to almost every industry.

Edda 17:51

If we weave in the wage issue around 'wages are supposed to go up with inflation', and sort of zoom out into the last five to 10 years, we see that wages are trailing behind inflation. What's going on there?

Conrad 18:13

Yeah, so with the last data that we've got, from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which is a hotbed of Excel, spreadsheets, and charts, in the September quarter in 2022 inflation was at 7.3% over the year, and wages were at 3.1%. Hot Tip, those don't equal. They're not the same numbers. We got new inflation data this week for December. December is always a bit of a crazy month. because Christmas. It just floods the economy. We don't have the wage data yet but we're not we're not expecting wages in that area. When you've got a gap that big where wage increases a half the rate of inflation over the year its really concerning for so many reasons. What it means is that your dollar just isn't going as far and that you're going to have to start making choices. For someone who's got kids or a big mortgage or anything like that you actually start sitting there going, 'Oh, okay, what am I going to cut back on'? What I get concerned about when you dig down into the inflation data is that over the year, it's the non discretionary items that are driving it up. What I mean by that is actually it's the essentials that run households and businesses. It'd be different if it was just like, 'oh, everyone's going on, like a holiday to Europe, and everyone loves a new Maserati'. Like, that'd be completely different. But it's literally like electricity that was one of the biggest drivers; and gas obviously and food. You can break it down into really specific things like you can get the inflation data on bread, and milk. One of my favourite ones to look at and it's completely irrelevant is men's footwear. Okay, I don't know, a whole lot about why we have that but we've got it. 40 years worth of data for mens footwear.

Together 20:58

[ Laughter ]

Conrad 21:01

That's the thing that's really concerning.Wages just aren't keeping up. Look, economists who are far smarter than I are saying that inflation is turning the corner, this is the peak. Part of that is because the Reserve Bank has put so much pressure on households with the interest rate increases over the past year. So people are pulling back and there is a cooling of the economy that we can see that's going on, and it's just taking time to go through. So one thing that people don't always understand is that every time there's an interest rate change, it takes about three months for that to go through the economy. So it's not like, 'oh, interest rates up, and our bank is changing it today, I'm going to I'm going to cut back tomorrow'. iIt actually takes a really long time. It's just the flow on effect that takes a little while. We are seeing it kind of go through, there are just some different challenges that are on the way.

Edda 22:06

The connection into why businesses can then not pass on pay rises to match inflation. What's going on for the business where they're like, 'no, sorry, we can't put we can't put money, we can't put pay rises out this year'?

Conrad 22:23

Well, if you go back a little while ago, we haven't had wage increases of above 3%, until the September quarter in 2022, since March 2013. So it's not like beforehand, they were like, you know, throwing it around. In 2016-2017 it had a one in front of it. That's crazy. So we were just like, what, 2.3%? Isn't that awesome? No, it's not. We should reasonably be seeing wages growing at about 4% over the course of the year. That's what I think is the optimum sort of level at the moment and we want to see inflation, much lower, the Reserve Bank likes inflation being between 2-3%. You want wages ahead of that, because when wages are ahead of inflation it means that people are able to meet their needs better, they've got some more income and their standard of living will increase. That's what all of this is about, no one goes to work just for laughs. They're doing it, because they want to improve the quality of their life. That's fundamentally what it comes down to. There are so many better things that we could be doing with our time instead of being at work. This is the challenge of all of that. The struggle for employers at the moment though, is that they're sitting there, and so many of the things that require so many supplies, like concrete, electricity all have those sorts of things, and you just need to run a business. They're going up so much. All of your overheads they're going up and you can't get all the supplies that you need to run your business, and you definitely can't get them on time. Oh, that's awesome. It's all great when things come a month late. You're just sitting there going 'great, so I'm paying 10% more on things from what it was last year, and then, and now I've got staff saying, "Give me a pay rise, at least in line with inflation at 7%" and you're just sitting there going, 'hmm, what?' 'how is this gonna work?' Because it's not like there's more money coming through. This is part of the conundrum - if your inputs, everything that makes the business run is going up, let's say, in line with inflation at 7%, and then your staff are asking for wage increases at that level, which is entirely reasonable and fair. Then what are you going to do?oYou've got to put up your prices. We don't always notice it when the coffee goes up by 10 or 20 cents. But we do notice it when the food bill goes up by 10%. This is kind of the flow on effect of the inflation puzzle.

Ryan 26:02

So we can expect a slightly better outlook in the next sort of 12 to 18 months, fingers crossed, that the economy will cool off.

Conrad 26:13

We live in hope! Everything seems to be pointing to that at the moment that things are going to cool down, they're probably not going to cool down to the level that everyone really wants it, which is inflation at 2% to 3%. Because you need some inflation. That's a good sign of a healthy economy and things are growing and stuff like that. But we probably won't get down to that level, but we'll get closer to it. Hopefully, the days of almost 8% inflation are getting pretty far behind us now. That's at least what we're thinking. Thank God Christmas isn't in like another month because we just couldn't handle it.

Ryan 26:56

Speaking of people who probably don't worry too much about the quality of their life: so we've seen a stagnation in wages over the past decade. Not enormous growth. Whereas CEO incomes have been booming. A 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute found that from 1978 to 2018, CEO compensation grew by 1,007.5%, while wages for the average worker grew by just under 12%. Now, for me, I just see extremely greedy CEOs who are screwing over their workers. Is there more to it than that? Why do we see sort of the heads of companies and organisations just astronomically getting richer? And I guess why is the gap increasing between the CEO and the everyday worker?

Conrad 27:55

Well, firstly, 1,007.5% that point five is really done a lot of heavy lifting. Yes it's great to be specific. Executive remuneration is actually pretty complex. One of the things that we've seen over the past decade though, and I've had a significant amount of exposure to this sort of stuff and figuring it out, is when you're giving someone at the top of an organisation, a pay rise, or a bonus, or something like that, not all of them realise that you're doing that. They are also expected to do that to people further down the food chain. So there is a bit of a mishmash there, and I kind of see it as a psychological issue for some people that they're not quite with it. But what I would say is, especially in this past decade where we have seen so much uptake in advanced technology, and especially at the moment when we're seeing more AI, robotics and things like that, in organisations, one of the reasons why executives are seeing so much pay rises is because the overall productivity of businesses is going up. But, I can't say that Edda and Ryan are responsible for that. You just see it as an overall, that business unit is more productive and it's because of the technology. Back in the 60s/70s, you could say little Jimmy over there is creating a bunch more widgets and churning out all of those manufactured goods where today you can't really say that it's harder to estimate. So basically, what happens is you the executives are kind of the beneficiaries of this at the moment. I think we're getting to a point where that's going to change actually because there is so much focus on all of this. Over the past five years in in the US and the UK in particular, and they've they've got rediculous executive remuneration, it isn't uncommon for people to walk away with $30 million a year over there as an executive, and it's like, 'why?' Yeah. So that is one of the key issues that we were kind of facing in all of this. That's kind of the challenge that organisations need to navigate and there's more work being done on that now. But also there is some ignorance amongst executives to be like, well, you're getting a pay rise, and you didn't just do a really great job.

Ryan 30:38

'It wasn't because you'

Conrad 30:42

'You aren't the second coming of Christ. Just keep that in mind. It's really hard for some of them to realise that because one thing that that's occurred in Australia in the past 10 to 15 years is that we've said to executives, you're so important. We've also seen the rise of like, the cult of personality around CEOs. So they get all of this attention, and we worship them and stuff like that. But for reasons that make zero sense to me, I hate all of that sort of stuff. They start to believe their own PR, which is a great problem.

Edda 31:29

I saw in the news, just today or yesterday that the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, has taken a pay cut in 2023, and is only going to be bringing in $49 million in compensation.

Ryan 31:45

How can he make ends meet?

Conrad 31:48

How can one put food on the table?

Conrad 31:52

Honestly, when he goes home to the family this year, he's gonna say it's gonna be a pretty tight Christmas. Jeez, it really is a hard life.,

Edda 32:06

Yeah. Well, if people are sitting listening, thinking, I haven't had a pay rise in a while, what are people's options when it comes to securing more money? Is it wise to reference inflation or a wage ratio, which is that ratio between the highest paid and the average paid worker in a company, are these good reasons for a pay rise?

Conrad 32:35

Look, they are and they aren't. So on on the wage ratio between the highest and lowest paid, often that data is really hard to come across through a business. So you'd be actually probably seeing it at an industry level. So it's not usually that helpful in that sort of level. It is actually just contextual, though, to kind of say, 'hey, this industry does have this problem and if it's going to be fixed we've all got a role to play in that'. When it comes to the inflation sort of question, everyone is kind of saying that it is factoring into those decisions for businesses, it has to. One thing that we see, and it's quite pronounced at the moment is that when people change jobs, they get a pretty significant pay rise. It's not uncommon to see people get a 15 or 20% pay rise, whereby changing jobs. So that's kind of part of it to say, well, I need a pay rise of, you know, at least in line with inflation, and ideally higher than that because if you're in line with inflation, it just means that your dollar is basically staying the same. The quality of life won't you increase. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to start looking for another job to do all that sort of stuff. Unless you've actually got a job to go to, that's not always the most persuasive thing, because they'll be like, 'Alright, fine, go look for another job'. While the labour market is super, super tight at the moment, it won't necessarily age you but it is really important for businesses to take that into account. The big thing that organisations want to say, is productivity. So you've got to think about how that organisation values productivity. Is that because you bring in more clients? Is that because you're able to build more? Is that because you're taking on more management responsibilities as well. It might be those sort of things. I think that's actually a pretty low hanging fruit the moment because every every organisation that I speak to is understaffed. Everyone is kind of doing a bit more. So if you can quantify that and say, Look, in the space of four days, I'm actually doing a five day a week job, because actually, on that fifth day at the end of each day, I'm also are having to kind of allocate tasks and do project management, or all of this business development that isn't actually part of what my job description is, and go back to the job description, that's always a really helpful thing to say how to say what's going on there and to say, so here are the additional things that are going on. Also, if you can quantify the value of them, that's awesome. Because giving someone the answer makes it so much more persuasive, to say, I've actually already done your homework for you, they need to go test that and they need to think about that.Those things don't always line up, that's fine. But if you go in there and say, I just have a 15% pay rise, and they come back and say, oh look, you're right, that you're doing so much more, here are some reasons why we can't give you 15%. But we can give you 10% pay rise, that could be a thing. Having another job offer is also really persuasive as well. So to kind of go there and say, hey, look, I've actually received this job offer. I'm happy to take it. But also, I would like to say here as well, is there anything that we can do. You've also got to be kind of open minded as well is that, if you recognise that there is a lot of a lot of pressures on organisations to actually financially stay solvent. Nobody wins when a business goes under, hot tip. So if they turn around, say, 'Hey, these are actually pretty tight, in six months, I reckon we're gonna be able to give you a pay rise, you can't hold us to that. But in the meantime, here are some other benefits that we might to provide you'. Maybe that means going down to a nine day fortnight with no cut in pay. That's a huge thing and that happens all the time. So if we all think a little bit more creatively, we're actually going to get there. I think also, one thing that people don't often do is think about what is the most persuasive thing to my manager, or whoever that they have to negotiate with? What actually gets them excited and on board with something? Think really critically about that? Because? Also, how do they communicate? Like, obviously, I love charts and data, if someone can come to me (I hold an executive role at the moment) and says, 'Hey, here's all the information' laid out in charts and data or easily put into that sort of way, it's super personal.

Ryan 37:48

In terms of, when you're negotiating, if you get the sense that a straight up, pay rise isn't working, if the conversation isn't quite going. In terms of negotiating maybe some other things, like you said, the nine day fortnight or some other benefits, would you have any tips for people doing that creative thinking outside of just money as their main motivator? But what else is it in roles at the moment that people could negotiate for a better quality of work?

Conrad 38:30

You've got to think about what you're motivated is, in all of this, I think I think at the end of the day, get given the state of the economy right now, everyone is considering the financial sort of aspect in all of this. So if there are ways that you can kind of get all of that stuff happening, that's really important. That might be pay rises, it might be, like, you know, compressed workweeks, it might be all of those sort of things that give you either more time or in effect increases your hourly rate, but you're still doing the same amount of work in a compressed time, whatever. People in their 20s, and 30s, for example, training and development is such a big thing. So if there's stuff that you're interested in doing, it might be a short course, it might be a full degree, it might be going to a conference or something like that. You can think about it in those settings. Put that forward and say, 'Hey, this is also what I'm thinking about. And this is a gap in my skills, and this is how it's going to be able to benefit into the future'. That's what organisations want to see. So it could be in a nonprofit could be in government could be wherever. But it is the same principle how can you currently add valu and how can you continue to add value into the future?

Conrad 40:04

On this 20s to 30s age group: it's a pretty interesting sort of thing, because the the issues that we see in the overall labour market are exacerbated there. So the unemployment rate for that cohort is lower. 80% of them are working, where in the overall population, it's only about 70%, which is still very high. 80% of them are working full time as well. So you've got these things where, actually the world is almost their oyster. When you think about people in that age group, in their 20s, and 30s, often they are kind of considered the future. The successes and bigger companies have really long term career plans for people, but you see it in smaller ones as well, where it's kind of like, oh, that person, in a few years will take on this role. So if their threatening to leave, sometimes can be a very persuasive thing, because it's just like, actually, we've got plans for you. Lots of managers and HR people are just so bad at saying that to say, Oh, actually, we actually think you're good and we want o keep you around. So many people aren't told that.

Ryan 41:22

Which can be so motivating to actually stay and go, Okay, look, maybe I would accept the 10% over the 15% if I know that I'm actually valued, and that my company wants to invest in me and perhaps will support me and upskilling myself as well.

Conrad 41:42

Totally, and if they're saying, we're expecting Edda to leave next year that that roll is going to become vacant, if you're interested in that we we'd be really we'd love to keep talking about that. So you can see that sort of promotion aspect on the horizon.Organization's can be really bad at having that conversation so actually be really upfront with them and say, 'Well, where do you see me going?' Most people don't ask that question. When I've seen those sort of things up close, I found that really, really persuasive; and that's what so much of all, when it comes to wages comes down to is actually persuasion. You're persuading your manager, you're persuading HR, you are also in the same time, you're persuading yourself, because you say, Yeah, I'm worth it. Get that Linda Evangelista, attitude, 'I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day', which I wish was my life. When you're going through all of this, you're thinking about yourself and that sort of thing necause one of the great risks actually in workplaces, is that when people start having these conversations, and good HR people and good managers know this, is that when people start negotiating their pay, they are getting themselves into a good position to apply for another job because they've got a good idea of their flaws and their strengths and what their value is. So even if that's not on your radar right now, but you start this process, you might soon find to be like, 'no, maybe I'm not useless'.

Ryan 43:38

So our listener story this week, we'll call her Linda inflationista, had her salary put up at a previous job because they did an equal pay gap assessment. Which, sidenote, is different to a gender pay gap assessment. To put it simply, the gender pay gap is a difference in pay between men and women across the entire economy, while the Equal Pay Gap is a difference in pay between men and women who are doing the same job. So our listener was informed that she wasn't earning as much as her male colleagues. She obviously had no idea what her coworkers were earning. So this came as a complete surprise. What do you think the best way to encourage the company you're working for to conduct an equal pay gap assessment and what are your thoughts about straight up asking your colleagues what they earn?

Conrad 44:27

Yeah, so this is this is really interesting and important, and love gender pay gap analysis, and you know, and going into it in this sort of way, and I love doing them, they're so much fun, because it can be a really confronting thing for an organisation because they're like, Oh, we didn't even realise that. These things can be quite incremental over time. which leads you to a point where you go 'Oh, we didn't realise that we didn't care about those workers'. But when you've done this, you can turn it around to them and say, 'did you know that you don't financially appreciate the contributions that this whole cohort of workers is making.' I do in my executive role, but also in some consulting sort of stuff, I do a lot of remuneration. The Workplace Gender Equality agency has so much information. They've got a whole data set that you can go through, and you can drill down into so many different parts of your industry, it can go into a sector, all of these sort of things. So what's really interesting in the latest data that they've released, which was late last year, in 2022, 54% of employers had done a gender pay gap analysis for their organisation. So it sounds like that's what Linda inflationista which is fantastic. Sounds like that's what they do. But But here's where it gets concerning. Of those employees, 40% of them didn't do anything. So they were like, 'yeah, so we know there's a problem, and there is a problem', because seven out of 10 Employers have a pay gap that favours men, those remaining three doesn't mean that they don't have one, it means in different parts it favours women and there's a small sliver where it's virtually equal. Invariably, they found something. But so many of them did nothing which is, in my mind, I just kind of sit there and say, while there is some financial reasons why you can't always act immediately, there are things that you can do. So if you're not doing anything, actually, it's pathetic and they should hang their heads in shame.

Conrad 46:51

What was your question? Oh, but going to do a gender pay gap analysis: yeah, it's really important. Encourage your employee to go do one. Ask when's the last time that they did one because it informs so much of what goes on. So many people haven't done it before so many organisations, but it is becoming a contemporary business practice. It's actually really easy to do as well. It's nothing complex, you get everyone's pay, you don't even have to separate it by name, you say this is the level that they're at, this is their role, this is the agenda and you figure things out from there. That's a really important part of it, just go do it, ask if they've done it, and the Workplace Gender Equality agency, WGA have got a lot of resources on how to do it quickly.

Edda 48:00

We will that in the show notes as well so you have access to that.

Ryan 48:06

If you ask them, and say you find out that there is that that pay gap...

Conrad 48:13

Talking to colleagues about pay is it's real fraught thing. Look, if it's happening more, which is completely fine, you got to be pretty careful. Australians don't like talking about pay or financial situations.

Edda 48:30

because there were some laws that changed, was it..

Conrad 48:34

Yeah, they're coming through now. Which is to do with the Fair Work Act and the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman, so the commission deals with disputes, the ombudsman does investigations. If you think that there's something going wrong, one of my favourite things to do is to put an organisation through the Fair Work Ombudsman. They have an anonymous tip off service.When I put in our organisations where I've been like, I reckon there's something up there, it takes ages, because they go through a whole bunch of stuff, but in a couple of years you can actually start to see, 'Oh, they have been investigated, or you have to assume that's what occurred and things have started to change'. But anyway, because of the changes to the Fair Work Act, they're looking more at issues of gender pay gap, and also looking at things across the industry. So why do nurses get paid less than lawyers and bankers? All three of them are essential to a society. But at the same time, I would literally be dead without a nurse. I have a lot more disputes without lawyers and I would have no idea where to put my money. I'd have to dig a hole somewhere if I didn't have a bank, but you got to think about something. So they're really interested in those sort of things at the moment. WhatI would say is start thinking, there's lots of information out there. The Workplace Gender Equality agency has some guides as well. So before you get to the point of being like, 'Hey, Ryan, how much do you get paid in our same role?' That wouldn't be my first port of call, I'd be gathering some other information first. It could invariably be something that you do with people from other organisations. That's a much more common thing. But over the next couple of years, we are going to see more people talking about hey, at work, and that was one of the big changes that occurred with the Fair Work Act. I'm pretty agnostic about that. I think there are pros and cons with doing that. It is going to be a pretty difficult thing for the culture of Australian workplaces and the economy, because I don't know how it's going to play out because some people are going to relish it, and especially young people, young people are very happy to talk about these sorts of things. But when you're talking to Linda inflationista's Mother who might be in her 60s, and still working or her father's same sort of thing. It might be a more confronting thing So you've got to pick your audience, if you're going to start talking about that sort of stuff.

Ryan 51:32

Is it a social thing that the reason why it's such a controversial topic to disclose how much you get paid? I think its obviously it's changing with the generations. But do you see it changing on a social level, that it's just becoming more acceptable to talk about it? Because personally I know what a lot of my friends earn. But definitely no one within the same organisation.

Conrad 51:32

Yes and I think that's kind of what it is. Because there's been so much sort of training that we've done together, so that might be uni, or TAFE, or something like that, you start there. Many more people are doing that now so you've got more than 50% of Australians going through formal education after school. You've actually got this cohort of people sitting there going, 'Hey, what are you earning in your first job', and you start to see what goes on there. Part of that is that you've got this group of people that you can talk to, and it's grown from there. And so part of it is all of that. So there is a social aspect to it and that's part of the generational thing. But then at the same time, it goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning. The pressure on the economy is such that people would wanting to talk about this more to be like, how are you doing this? Also, we've all got that friend that has this ridiculous lifestyle

Ryan 53:14

I can think of so many.

Conrad 53:16

Yeah, amd you just sit there and say, 'Yeah, all right, we earn a similar amount or you earn less than me,' which is often the case I find, and you sit down, say, 'How are you doing this'?

Ryan 53:31

Five overseas trips a year? I just don't understand.

Conrad 53:35

Yeah, it's kind of like 'mate, this doesn't make any sense'. So if you're not talking about it, with those people directly, talking about it to your friends had been like 'far out, how are they doing this? Why is Ryan always in the Bahamas? Why does he charter a plane to Bali all the time? How?' So you know, it is...

Edda 54:04

...time to ask that friend 'How much do you actually earn'

Together 54:08

[ Laugher ]

Edda 54:09

On that note, thank you so much, Conrad, for joining us. This has been a super juicy conversation full of insane statistics. Breaking down every single concept for us has been amazing. If people want to find you on Tik Tok, or LinkedIn, where can they go to track you down? You and your charts?

Conrad 54:33

Yeah, look, I haven't ever posted anything on Tik Tok. But for my name, I'm Conrad Liveris, and I tend to come up on most things and always up for like a chat about the good times on this stuff.

Ryan 54:46

Amazing. Thank you so much, Conrad.

Conrad 54:48

No worries. Thanks for having me.

Ryan 54:55

All right. That was an amazing conversation. Thank you so much, Conrad, for coming on the pod. So Edda what were your main takeaways from our money episode?

Edda 55:06

All right,, I'm gonna keep it brief, because we've all been listening for a long time. But my two takeaways is, number one, we've been talking a lot about salary amd I think it's good to also remember that if you are charging an hourly rate, aka freelancing your life away, that is also something that you need to be considering. So, if inflation is seven or 8%, then maybe I will reconsider my hourly rate and perhaps I'll put my hourly rate up by 10% as per Conrad's recommendations. You just don't really know when to put your freelance rate up. I think quite often, I will put my rate up when I feel like I've levelled up in terms of a skill or I've grown in my professional development. But I certainly have never looked at inflation, and gone, 'oh, I should maybe reflect what's going on in the economy in my hourly rate so that I can be earning, you know, ahead of inflation, and I can actually be improving my standard of living'. So I think that's a really interesting thing to think about as a freelancer. Not to mention, as a freelancer, we really do need to incorporate so many more costs, which is a whole nother episode, which this is a slight teaser for. We're actually going to bring out a calculator to help freelancers determine what they should be charging as their hourly rate, and it's going to be just building in all of the things that quite often get forgotten. I think tax and super, are the straight up simple ones that we usually remember or will put aside money for. But then putting money aside for public holidays and putting money aside for sick pay, holiday pay, maternity leave. There's just so many things, I think that we need to consider as freelancers. So sometimes when you put it all together, your hourly rate comes out as something far higher than what your what you're used to charging, or if you've just transitioned out of a salary paying job that pays you $45 an hour, you can actually just go out into the market and charge $45 an hour because you're undercutting yourself. There's there's so many things that you really need to be incorporating into your hourly rate. Anyway, this is kind of going a little off topic. But this is a little teaser for a future episode, which we're going to be dropping in the next couple of months, which is all around hourly rates and how to set your hourly rate.

Ryan 57:59

Don't undersell yourself. Learning your own value is a real process that often takes quite a few years in any industry to go 'actually, I'm worth this much' and to have the confidence to charge what you're actually worth.

Edda 58:25

My little filter just hit the ground

Ryan 58:30

We are the home of technical difficulties here on Work Feels.

Edda 58:37

Now my other takeaway: I had a tonne of takeaways, but without sort of reiterating everything that Conrad said I just wanted to share a little hot tip for the for the potentially looming recession. I usually get my hair done at a hairdresser, which is a delightful experience and also can be quite an expensive experience. Today, I decided that I was fed up with my hair I went to the barber.

Ryan 59:11

Oh my god,

Edda 59:12

and got a haircut. Yep, I just walked in there and said, 'Hey, do you take walk ins?' I just needed a haircut. They said 'Sure thing, just take a seat'. Within a minute, they had me in the chair. I didn't even ask how much it was going to cost. I just thought we'll just roll with this. Then the lady cut my hair, I said I want to blunt Bob no layers,just keep it straight. She cut my hair, took about 10 minutes, it was the quickest haircut I've ever had, and then you'll never guess how much she charged me: $27.50.

Ryan 59:56

Do you know how much I pay for my barber In Sydney? $70 to cut my hair.

Edda 1:00:08

Look, I think that hairdressers and barbers do a great job.

Ryan 1:00:14

Oh of course, it's worth every penny,

Edda 1:00:18

Absolutely. But it was an absolute living-the-dream experience to walk in and be 10 minutes $27.50 later, and I've got myself a totally new haircut,

Ryan 1:00:35

You've got a whole new look, you've got a whole new vibe in 10 minutes for $27

Ryan 1:00:49

That's amazing. All right, to chime in with my two cents. Listening to what Conrad said that I think it's so hard to ask for a pay rise, probably one of the most difficult things you have to do at work. But going into that discussion really well prepared and diversifying your, your your well, having, sorry, going into that conversation really well prepared, and having not just money as the sole end goal for that conversation and thinking about your career a little bit more holistically if you are in a career type role. But going into that meeting, and thinking 'Okay, I could do this training, I could ask for this training, I could ask for this tech support, I could ask for my work week to be structured a little differently' things that are going to make you happier at work, and help you function better or help you learn more and grow more, and then look into the future and think, 'Okay, if I just commit maybe a couple more years, I'm gonna get X amount of experience, and does that put me in a even greater position to go okay, now I'm really ready to look for a new role, because I've got all of this experience'. So always go in there and try and try and get what you're worth and prove it. I think Conrad mentioned how important some evidence is. But then also think about, maybe it's not just money that would make things better. How can you make your your work life and your career better, just outside of the Dolla dolla bills,

Edda 1:02:40

I actually have a hot tip from an aunt and uncle of mine who work in the field of HR. They said always overshoot. If you overshoot, so if you're on 50 and then you say, I want 80, which is a big jump, they'll just come back at the upper limit. So if their are limited in their budget is actually 70, which maybe you would never have thought because you think 'oh, maybe I'll get 55'. But if you just go big, maybe eighty is a little extravagant, but let's go with that. Then they'll come back and say, we can give you 70. Or maybe they'll say I can give you 60. But then you know that they're coming back at the top of their limit of the band that they're working within. Whereas if you come and say I want 55 And they go 'Yeah, okay,' then, you know, 'Oh, didn't go high enough'.

Ryan 1:03:47

This is true. I almost shot myself in the foot with my first job in Sydney, I went into the interview asking for 10 grand less than what the role was actually offered at. I was like 'oh wow that was stupid'. I had the interview via a recruiter, but I told them my salary expectations and they were just like, oh, yeah, that's fine. but they didn't say, 'oh, yeah, that's fine. they'll totally offer you more than that'. Luckily, it was a room full of very nice people and they were like, 'oh, yeah, we'll absolutely offer you the job and by the way, it's 10 grand higher than what your expectation is' and I was like, 'Oh, great'. So don't undersell yourself and do your research as well. Talk to your peers about what they earn. I just think it's so important. It's something in society that needs to change.

Edda 1:04:50

Think of the CEOs at the end of the day. If they're bringing in the millions we can bring in the 'thou thou's'

Ryan 1:04:57

Screw the CEOs you're worth. You're worth another 10, 20, 30k just do it.

Edda 1:05:06

All right, also in our next episode, which is the all staff email, we will be going through some of the questions that we've been fielding around pay. So if you have a question that you would like us to tackle in the next episode, do send it to us via Instagram or however you prefer to send it, go to the website and we'll do some research and give you some answers. We can't promise that they are expert answers, but we'll give you some food for thought.

Ryan 1:05:43

We are not financial advisors. Do not follow any do not financial advice. General advice only.

Edda 1:05:51

Life advice.

Ryan 1:05:54

Feel feels advice. All right, team. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the money episode. You can find us on Instagram at Work Feels Pod. You can find us on LinkedIn. I always screw this up is it Work Feels on LinkedIn. I think it's just Work Feels. You can find us on LinkedIn just search Work Feels. You can head to our website workfeels.com where you can discover all of the episodes, more information, blog posts, pictures of us, anything you like!

Together 1:06:29

[ Laugher ]

Edda 1:06:32

And don't forget to rate, review and subscribe on your favourite podcast app.

Edda 1:06:37

Until next time,

Ryan 1:06:38

until next time, see you team!

1:06:40

♪ Work Feels Outro ♪

Edda 1:06:45

I'm Edda

Ryan 1:06:46

I'm Ryan

Edda 1:06:46

and this

Ryan 1:06:48

is work feels

Transcribed by https://otter.ai