And if we're taking a more intersectional approach, the racialized gender pay gap is 67 cents to the dollar.

When we're looking at management and gender, 64% of management roles are held by men, compared to 36% that are held by women.

And on top of that, many of these positions are in highly skilled trades organizations or union organizations, which are often really difficult to join; it makes the divide further, it makes the split further, and it makes it really hard to actually penetrate these organizations.

What Causes the Pay Gap

Then, we get into the actual executive gender pay gap, which is horrifying as well. We are looking at 56 cents to the dollar, and this is not even looking at an intersectional identity.

So, you might be asking, why is this still happening? It's 2023. There is so much research out there, and information around how to minimize, or close the gap. The unfortunate thing is that we operate in a system that is designed to elevate a select few. And when it comes to the gap itself, there is a difference between the types of jobs that different genders are expected or thought of taking and the values that they hold.

There's a difference between the part-time and full-time value; there's also a difference and value expectation between unpaid labour (that also applies to parental leave), progression language which we'll talk about, negotiation expectations and lastly, bias.

You might look at this list and say, "There's a lot of things outside of my control here. How am I going to close this gap myself?" And you're right, there's a lot of things outside of your control, but there is one thing that is within your control that we're going to focus on today, which is our friend, (or actually not our friend), the progression lag.

What is Progression Lag (Not Our friend)

The progression lag is when your title and pay lag behind your skill and expertise. Now, the progression lag is sneaky because technically you are being paid for the level, the expertise, the skills that you are currently holding in regards to your title. But the thing is, when you're leveling up in your experience and skillset, because of your time in an organization or the time in the role, and you're not actually being pushed ahead, that's where the progression lag creeps up.

For example, you've been in a role for five years and you've been really great in that role. You decide or need to take leave, maybe that leave was a year or even two years, and you come back and it turns out you're still in the same role. That is an example of progression lag because instead of being pushed ahead, you're now stuck in that same position, technically still being paid at that fair rate as you were holding, but you're not progressing along.

Another example, we see time and time again is where you end up becoming indispensable to your manager. It might feel good, but it is a sense of ruinous competency because your manager can't lose you. That's another version of progression lag, because you can't progress along when you're either not getting the opportunity, the exposure, or the ability to actually be pushed forward.

I'm glad that we can talk about this today, because hopefully we can illuminate this sneaky subject. The thing about progression lag is that not everybody wants to necessarily move vertically, and that's okay too; not everybody wants to gain the titles and not everyone wants to gain the big salary jumps. It's important to say that that's not what progression lag is. Progression lag is when you are trying to advocate for yourself or progress upwards, but you're held back because you're missing that exposure, impact, or opportunity to progress forward. The reason why this matters is that it directly impacts your pay.

Case Studies (with Examples and Solutions!)

We're going to look at cumulative examples of how progression lag can hold you back and how it impacts your ability to influence, and your power within the organization. It also reduces your control over your career trajectory because you're losing a sense of control over what you can progress towards. Lastly, it is a form of invisible discrimination because you are being pushed down while you see others, perhaps, your peers are being propelled forward.

To shed some light on this, we have three case studies that are all real-time examples of these folks going through scenarios of progression lag.

Case Study #1: Christy (Product Manager)

In our first case study we have Christy. Christy is a product manager at a tech company and in year one, Christy is going through acquisition hell. The company that they're working at has just been acquired and it is an absolute nightmare. Nobody knows what's going on, there's no processes in place. Christy's peers are all leaving for better companies and all they want to do is get out.

At year one Christy is currently at $70,000 and all they're focused on at this point is interviewing and applying so that they're able to get out of there.

In year two, Christy gets their wish and gets a new job. Now the thing is, Christy was just so ready to leave and did not want to rock the boat at their new place. They ended up taking what they were offered, which is the same salary at $70,000.
The thing here is that Christy has two years of experience, but because they just wanted to get out of there, they accepted the salary at the exact same position at the same rate.

By year three, Christy is absolutely killing it. They are doing the best that they can and they've had a few years under their belt now, so they're really knowledgeable and know exactly what they're doing. They're starting to mentor people; they're starting to grow more junior employees, and they're starting to take on a more thought-leadership position in their company.
Because of their stellar performance, they get a $5,000 increase bringing their salary up to $75,000, which is not too bad.

By year four, Christy gets an amazing performance review; people love them, their manager loves them; they've been called the best employee ever, which is amazing to hear.

In their performance review, their manager even confesses they've never had anyone this good, which obviously is great news for Christy, and the manager also mentions that they're doing the job of two people.
Christy thinks that this is a great opportunity to take on a more senior role and potentially prompt for a promotion. However, their manager says, "Nope. You're needed way too much. We can't lose you." So, Christy is currently indispensable and by year four, Christy is stuck in career purgatory. The nice thing is that they did receive a salary increase bringing them up to $79,000.

However, now we're looking at four years in. Christy is still in the same position, in the same band (and they're slowly inching towards the top end of their band) but they're not too sure what a promotion looks like.

By year five, Christy is ready. They are starting to mentor those junior team members, starting to gain more exposure into more leadership roles, into higher visibility projects and they are ready to ask for that promotion. They feel like they can really take on that senior title and their manager also mentions that they're ready. However, Christy is needed where they are because they are still indispensable.

The junior team members are still not trained enough in order to take over Christy's role. Christy, very fairly, asks for a raise just because they've been doing so well. Unfortunately, something completely out of our control, the market tanks and Christy is not able to get that raise that they were hoping for because the company was not able to budget for it. Instead, the manager gifts Christy with more responsibility because that is exactly what they asked for. Not really.

By year five, Christy is overworked and still waiting for that well-deserved promotion and their salary is now at $82,000.

Over the last five years, Christy has earned a total of $12,000 in raises. Doesn't seem too bad, it's 3% each year, so around cost-of-living. However, Christy is trapped in that progression lag. Why? Because Christy became indispensable and it was essentially ruinous competency. Christy was not able to get out of that role and was not able to move into a senior position, therefore not able to increase their exposure or their impact.

In terms of Christy's progression lag traps, Christy ended up applying for a role that was technically too junior for them, which was understandable because they wanted to get out as soon as possible. I'm sure we've all experienced this in some way or another where we'd rather just take the job, and then we'll figure it out. But in this case, because they didn't negotiate, they were trapped in a lag.
On top of that, because they were so stellar and the company couldn't invest in other talent to take over Christy's role, they were never able to be promoted. Then the timing of promotions and raises just didn't work with the market.

So, let's take a step back here. There are a few little tweaks that we can suggest to help Christy through their journey over the last five years.

Using the same story, Christy, year one, rewinding through acquisition hell, we know that Christy is at $70,000 and we know that Christy wants to get out ASAP. So, by year two, all of their hard work is rewarded and they get a new job. This time, they negotiate and they get their salary to $75,000. It makes sense because Christy already has a year under their belt and they're able to move up the salary band.

By year three, as we know, Christy is stellar and is absolutely killing it in their role and is starting to put in talks of promotion. They start prompting their manager that they are seeking a more senior role, to which their manager responds, "Absolutely, let's put in a plan, we can work on that next year. I'm noticing that you're starting to mentor more junior team members. Keep that up and the promotion is yours."
Because of Christy's stellar work, they were also able to get a salary increase to $80,000.

By year four, Christy is ready for that promotion; they are shoring up their skillset, they are ready to have that conversation with their manager, and they are promoted to Senior PM, which is great for Christy. Their salary is bumped up to $88,000.

By year five, Christy has had a great first year. They were able to really settle into their new role and feel comfortable in it. Now they're able to stretch themselves, become more strategic and take on more of a leadership role. Because of their work, they were able to get a bump to $91,000. This is still the year of the recession so Christy wasn't able to get the salary increase they were really hoping for, but still a good enough bump for them. In total, we're looking at $21,000 in raises over the last five years in comparison to the $12,000 in the last example.

When we look at it from a culminative standpoint, it ends up being $28,000 more over the last five years, which is a significant number. Hooray for Christy, we love that for them!

Case Study #2: Janelle (Civil Engineer)

Janelle is a Civil Engineer and year one, Janelle is promoted to senior consultant, which is exciting. In year one, Janelle's starting salary is $90,000, which is a great start.

By year two, Janelle is a billable hour superstar. She's received incredible feedback. The team loves her. Clients are really starting to take notice and the company is thrilled with how much she's bringing in for the business. With those rave reviews, she receives a $99,000 salary, which is a $9,000 increase.

Around this point though Janelle realizes that if the company was able to give her a 10% increase in her first year, she wonders if maybe she wasn't making as much as she should in her first year. She wonders if she should have negotiated, but it's in the back of her mind. She's not really thinking about it too much because she's just thrilled to almost break six figures.

By year three, Janelle has really branded herself as that go-to technical expert. She has really focused on her technical aptitude. She's invested a lot of her time and energy into building out that tech stack that she has, and she's absolutely crushing her billable rate.

The thing here is though, because she's been focusing so much on enhancing her technical aptitude, she hasn't really been thinking about her greater network or any other management or leadership competencies. Janelle has a plan and really wants to eventually become partner and go down that management track. But she hasn't really mentioned it to anyone and just assumes that management will eventually tap her on the shoulders when they think she's ready because she's doing so well.
With another rave review in year three, her salary gets bumped up to $106,000, which is another great year for Janelle.

By year four, Janelle is still killing it as the billable superstar on the team, and at this point, clients are really, really recognizing her efforts and she's becoming an industry-wide name in terms of her technical aptitude. She's starting to mentor junior team members. However, around this time, she's not really taking on new business opportunities or those leadership and management competencies. She's still waiting around and expecting management to tap her on the shoulders and say, "Hey, you're ready for promotion." But, she just assumes that it's going to happen next year, so she doesn't bring it up again.

This time around she gets a salary increase that brings her up to $110,000. This is a bit more nominal than what she's been used to getting. So, she starts taking note that she might be edging towards the top end of her band, but because she assumes that management will tap her on the shoulder, she doesn't really say anything. She just accepts the compliments and moves on.

Now, by year five, once again, another year of really rave reviews, but no promotion and no one has mentioned anything. This time around she mentions to her manager that she should be ready for a promotion. Why hasn't anyone tapped her on the shoulder? And to her dismay, her manager is absolutely shocked to hear that Janelle wants to be a manager, he’s always pictured her to be a more technical person.

Because of how much Janelle focused on her technical aptitude, he didn't realize that she wanted to actually go down the partner track. And because she never mentioned anything, he also disclosed that there are some specific skills that she needs to develop around new business and proposal work, as well as management and leadership competencies that she doesn't have yet, which will take some time to develop.

By year five, Janelle is essentially waiting over the next few years to see if she'll get promoted. And by minimum, she'll have that conversation next year. She gets a small bump to $113,000. However, she knows that she's at the top end of the band now and she won't receive a salary increase because the company will need to change her billable rate in order to do so. So, now she essentially has to wait around. Over the last five years, she's received $23,000 in raises, which sounds great. That is a 6% increase per year, which is beating cost-of-living.

However, Janelle has been absolutely kicking it out of the park. She has been crushing it. She's the highest billable person in the entire company, bringing in so much business to the organization. Sure, she's getting 6% per year, but really with the value that she's bringing to her org., she should be progressing a lot further.

Unfortunately, our friend Janelle, is stuck in the progression lag. In terms of Janelle's progression lag traps, her manager didn't know how to develop their staff and on top of that, decision makers weren't aware of her interest in progression. Also, Janelle didn't know the potential career paths and the required skills needed to level up or get promoted. She also assumed that the raises at the company were final, so she didn't negotiate. She didn't voice her career path trajectory to her manager until it was too late. And she didn't review or didn't have access to the career development paths to know how to progress into management.

Let's pause and we're going to try that again. We're going to see how we can help Janelle through this.

As we know in year one, Janelle has been promoted to senior consultant, but this time Janelle asks for $5,000 more. Her manager responds with no, which is fair. You know, Janelle's duty is to ask, and sometimes management can say no, but Janelle very smartly asks, "What do I need to do to make $95,000?" And her manager says, "Okay, fair question. To get you there, you'll need to get up to an 80% billable rate." And Janelle thinks, challenge accepted. But before getting there, she negotiates with her manager and says, "If I can make that, let's review my salary in the next three months and put it in the books so that we know that the conversation is coming." And the manager agrees to that.

In year one, Janelle starts off at $90,000, but as we know, Janelle is a superstar and of course meets that 80% billable target. In three months, she gets her salary bumped up to $95,000 because she's met those targets. Now in year two, Janelle is that billable hour superstar. She's honed that technical aptitude; she's investing in those skillsets, but she's also noticing that she really wants to get on a management or leadership track.

She starts building out her network bit-by-bit and starts to shadow more proposal work and sales calls just to see how things are done; to get her bearings. Because she's performing so well, she gets a great salary increase that brings her up to $99,000.

By year three, she is known as that go-to technical expert. So, nothing really changes from her previous case. However, this time around Janelle makes it very clear that she wants to go for a manager role and eventually partner.
She's being very intentional about building out her network, building relationships with clients, and starting to close smaller business deals for the firm. Janelle gets an increase to $106,000 and because she's made a few small business closes, she uses that as leverage to talk to her manager about wanting to make partner one day. Her manager says, "Absolutely, let's put a plan in place. We can get you there. Let's train you on those key competencies and skills."

By year four, Janelle is absolutely killing it, she's slowly starting to edge away from that technical expert and become more invested into developing new businesses and closing deals, as well as becoming more of a thought-leader. With all of that, her manager said, "It's high time that we promoted you because you're just bringing in so much value to the business." So Janelle, by year four is promoted to manager and her salary is at $119,000.

By year five, Janelle is amazing at managing her team (remember her technical aptitude). Well it has become one of her strengths, because her team is known for their technical aptitude because she was able to directly mentor them. On top of that, because of her billability, her team is outperforming all the other teams, which is great for Janelle and great for the company. And then on top of that, Janelle has been actively mentoring her team so that she's able to take an intentional step away from the technical stuff and focus on leadership and strategy, putting her on that trajectory to partner.
With all of that said, her salary is now at $127,000 by year five.

Overall over the last five years, she has made $37,000 in raises, which is much more than the past case, which was $23,000. Cumulatively, we are looking at $27,000 more over the past five years, which we absolutely love for Janelle, and especially as someone that was an absolute superstar in their work. In the previous case, she was watching her coworkers getting promoted to management roles, even though she was outperforming them.

Case Study #3: Nouria (Senior Geologist)

Lastly, we have our friend Nouria, who is a Senior Geologist.

In year one, Nouria is promoted to manager and receives a salary of $130,000. Now, Nouria is new to management and she knows that she should negotiate, but she is basically okay to accept the $130,000 because she wrestled with herself and said, "You know what? I'm new to it, whatever, I'm okay to start at the baseline of the band, it's fine."

By year two, she receives the feedback that her work meets expectations. However, she doesn’t get any critical feedback or hear from her manager about her areas of improvement. She just gets, “You're doing great, and you're meeting expectations” with nothing else concrete.
She's not exactly thrilled about that, because she really thought she would get a higher evaluation and since she just was “meeting expectations”, her salary was bumped up to $134,000.

Now, in year three, Nouria is essentially stuck with behind-the-scenes work. This is the unglamorous work; the work that doesn't get that exposure, or showcase her impact. However, this work is important to get done, because it's the work that moves the ship along. Unfortunately, her manager doesn’t recognize this work and because it doesn’t have the exposure that she was hoping for to get promoted, she doesn’t get the response she wants when asking for a promotion.

Instead, when she was asking for it, her manager met her with, "Sure, yeah, next year." But once again, not really any concrete feedback was given to her, yet she accepts it. She's thinks, “Okay, we're going to try again next year.” Since she was doing that behind-the-scenes work and wasn't able to gain that exposure, her salary is now at $137,000.

In year four, she receives amazing news. She's so excited. She is expecting! She's thrilled to grow her family and this is something that she's been waiting for. So, she is expected to go on her leave in November.

Nouria knows that her performance reviews at her company happen in December, but since she goes on leave in November, she doesn’t have the conversation beforehand because she doesn’t think it’s needed. She performed really well that year; she made sure of it and already talked to her manager about her promotion. Her manager said, “Yeah, it'll happen next year.” So, she feels like she's okay.

She leaves in November without having that negotiation conversation, but feels like it's in good hands. At this point, before going on leave, she receives a small bump to $142,000 as a cost-of-living increase.

Now in year five, she is back to work in August and she's thrilled. She's excited to have that promotion conversation because of all the hard work she put in last year, and she feels like she's ready to take on that next step. However, *ominous music plays*, she receives a new boss, which she really wasn't expecting. On top of that, in her performance evaluation, her new boss fairly says, that they've only had four months with her and they couldn't actually evaluate Nouria fairly. Based on that, they weren't able to give her more than a "meet's expectations."

Nouria is pretty furious at this point because she was promised that she would get an increase and a promotion from her previous manager. She's pretty bummed out that her new manager, A, didn’t read the reports and or talk to her and B, couldn't actually meet her where she was coming from. So, she is not happy. She brings up this promotion and her manager says, "Sure, maybe we'll see, but I'm not promising anything because I don't know where your performance is at."

By year five, Nouria is stuck waiting till next year, and she receives a small bump to bring her up to $145,000. Over the last five years, Nouria has received $15,000 in raises. This is tough because she went on leave, so she missed out on that opportunity for exposure, which potentially got her stuck in another progression lag. At this point she is making 2.75% per year in increases, meaning that she is actually under cost-of-living, which technically meant that she was losing money. Our poor friend Nouria is stuck in that progression lag once more.

Now, in terms of her lag traps, Nouria started at the bottom of the pay band. This is something that I can really relate to because I remember when I was starting off, I was like, “Okay, you know what? We're going to start at the bottom because we have something to prove.“ But the thing is, if you don't negotiate, you're going to start at the bottom and sometimes it's really difficult to climb your way up, especially if you have a manager that gives you really vague and unhelpful feedback.

In Nouria's case, her manager was telling her that she was doing fine, but never gave the critical feedback Nouria needed. On top of that, Nouria was starting the promotion conversation after she was already ready for the promotion and then also went on a leave, which was exciting for her own personal family journey. However, because she didn't negotiate anything or get anything in writing beforehand, she was unable to secure something for when she came back, leaving it up to something beyond her control after getting a new boss.

Let's have our final do-over, and see what we can do here to help Nouria out.

In year one, our friend Nouria is promoted to manager, but this time around, Nouria negotiates her salary and brings herself up to $135,000.

By year two, Nouria is meeting those expectations, but instead of taking her manager's word for it, she has a conversation with her manager and says, "Hey, you've evaluated me at meeting expectations. I want to know what more I can do here." Her manager says, "I don't have any feedback. You're doing really great." And Nouria thinks, okay, manager, I see you. You're not going to give me the things I need, so I'm going to ask you exactly what I need, "What skills will I need in a senior role so that I can level up?" And her manager says, "Wow, okay, that is a specific question and we can get you there." Nouria asked for very specific feedback so that she could level up. So by year two, Nouria receives a salary increase to $145,000.

By year three, after working on those skillsets and competencies that had been in the plan for year two, Nouria finally gets that well-deserved promotion and is now a senior manager bringing her salary up to $159,000.

By year four, Nouria is expecting, once again, she's thrilled, she's so excited, and she knows that she's going to go on leave in November. This time around, instead of going on leave empty-handed, she negotiates a conversation around a promotion and salary increase.
Her salary is increased to $167,000 before she goes on leave and she's thrilled. She's been settled into her role as a senior manager for a year now, and received the salary that she feels comfortable with.

Now, back in year five, she's back at work in August and has her new boss, but she's not feeling too anxious because she already got that promotion. She feels good about her performance, and now it's really about the conversation around the cost-of-living. She gets another performance evaluation around “meeting expectations”. She didn't really get the clarity or concrete feedback she was hoping for from her new boss, but she still got the cost-of-living increase that brought her up to $170,000.

Over the last five years, Nouria received $40,000 in increases because she was able to self-advocate and really push for specific and clear feedback. That is much, much, much higher than the previous $15,000. So, over the last five years, she accumulated $88,000 more, which is huge and we love that for Nouria.