Self-Care through Pay Equity with Jocelyn Thompson

[00:00:00] Wendy Manganaro: Hi, everyone. My name's Wendy Manganaro,o and I am the Host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us. And if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. 

So sit back, relax. And learn from the practical to the woo-hoo, how to best take care of you. Have a great day. Stay blessed. And leave a review when you're done listening to the show. Thanks so much. 

I have Jocelyn Thompson here with us, and I'm going to read Jocelyn's bio, and then we're gonna talk about today's topic, pay equity, which I think really is an important topic when it comes to women in business.

Let me read her bio, and we'll get right to the conversation. Jocelyn is the principal and CEO of Work Vision Consulting, a D. E. and I consulting firm with a focus on compensation equity founded in 2020. Work Vision consulting strives to create workplaces where people can be their authentic selves.

Jocelyn has 16 years of work experience managing people and people programs. She has a senior professional in human resources certification and holds certificates in D E and I, and compensation studies. Her passion lies in creating equitable work environments and pay equity and transparency. So welcome, Jocelyn thanks for coming on. 

[00:01:38] Jocelyn Thompson: Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:01:40] Wendy Manganaro: I'm really excited to be able to do this. I got to talk to Jocelyn before. I like to talk to all of my guests before they come on so we can see how we're gonna jive together. And we, we did pretty well. I was really excited, and I believe, if I remember correctly, you went to school in Washington.

Am I remembering? And my husband's working out there now. So that worked out well. So he really likes it out there. So, you know, we got to talk for a little bit and get to know each other, which is fabulous, but I'm really interested for our guests to kind of pull a chair up and listen in on this conversation because I've worked with a lot of women entrepreneurs and we always get to this sticking point.

When they say I wanna do X, Y, and Z. And then I say, what do you charge? And then. I'm always floored by the amount of work compared to what they're charging. And so we're gonna kind of have a conversation around that today. 

I'm curious, how did you find out there was a problem or, or what what drew you to even do this? There's usually something innately that happens. They see something and, and they go, well, there there's something just not right here.

 And somehow, it becomes a business. So, so I'm curious where you started?

[00:02:46] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah, my career has taken a lot of turns over the years. So I've worked in, in many different industries. I started in hospitality and retail and then transitioned into the HR space and actually ended up in my career back in hospitality and the HR space.

And so. One company that I worked for, I was the sole HR person for a little while, eventually hired a second person. But one of the things, when I was working there, I realized that all of the pay was secret and even secret from myself as the HR person. And so what that meant was our controller of the company was the only person who had access to anyone's pay.

Only person who could process payroll, which meant couldn't really take a vacation. And so I really pushed to get access to that information and eventually convinced the CEO who I reported directly to that. I needed to have access, to pay information for a lot of reasons. You know, when we were talking about promoting people, I needed to be involved in those conversations.

When we were looking just across the board at our pay, I needed to be able to see that. And then, I needed to be a backup for payroll because people need to be able to take time off. And so. When I got access to the pay, I realized why it was secret, which was because it wasn't fair. It wasn't equitable. Decisions were being made based on feelings versus data.

And so I started digging into that a little bit more. And got market data started, you know, looking at whether that pay was equitable or not. And that's what really broke me into this pay equity space was working on it there. And I just loved it. I loved looking at the data, understanding, you know, why, why the pay decisions were being made, maybe making them differently, all of those things.

And so that's how I got started in this world of pay equity. 

[00:04:51] Wendy Manganaro: So that's, that's interesting because you know, it's so funny how I write contracts today was always based on how me and my business partner used to write them. And I was like; I'll never do that again. Right. So it takes some sort of experience.

 Where we go, wait, wait a, wait a second. That doesn't seem right. , and so, you know, while you were doing that, like, This idea of, paying people based on feeling rather than merit in facts is essentially what you're saying, What what did you find?

Was it based on feeling? Was it based on, on feeling? Was based on feeling of like what the job was? Or was it based on sexes? We talk about the glass ceiling in women. So is that real, based on what you saw? You don't have to give us a company name, but is that a real thing or is this something that culturally we've grown up with this idea of glass ceilings, but they're really not there, or they are there based on what you were saying?

[00:05:49] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah. If we look at any data we can see, I, I think when we think about the glass ceiling for me, what we're talking about is the opportunity gap and the fact that women aren't promoted into leadership at as high of rates, particularly black women, Hispanic women, indigenous women, I think, you know, it gets even more complicated and nuanced when we start looking at identities like.

You know, gender non-binary people with disabilities, all these different factors, the data supports that women aren't getting promoted at the rate men are despite wanting those positions. Right? So that's a piece of when we look at the median pay gap. So that's just comparing. Usually the stats you're seeing are gender. So men versus women and, you know, we know that that exists and that's partially caused by this opportunity. We also have the piece that's equal pay for equal work. There is still a gender gap. When we look at jobs that are the same, it's less than the medium pay gap, but it exists. And so, you know, when I looked at this data, the data that had been confidential.

Gender was certainly a factor. There were other things, there was favoritism that I was seeing from leadership, but I looked at gender. I looked at race. I believe I looked at disability status and veteran status and the, the primary ones I saw were gender and race as being really factors in the decisions.

[00:07:20] Wendy Manganaro: Wow. And so let's, let's fast forward actually to the pandemic. Suddenly people didn't have the security in the jobs that they thought they had during the pandemic. I'm sure there's an uprising female entrepreneurship as a result that people don't need to go back to work like they used to, but then when they go to start their own business, It's a hard thing to set your prices.

It's a hard thing to say like, well, this is what we were, this is what I was getting paid in the field. How do I turn that into a business for me? What are you seeing as far as that? Because I'm assuming if it happened there and they didn't think they were getting paid enough there, their mindset doesn't shift, just because they open their own business.

[00:08:03] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah, we definitely saw a huge Exodus from work during the pandemic. A lot of that was people getting laid off and the data showed us that women were impacted at much higher rates than men were. And then, you know, as we talk about a, a lot of people are leaving their jobs, they're choosing to leave their jobs.

They're choosing to look for other jobs because I think the pandemic made people. Think differently about the importance of work and what they wanted from their jobs. And so, especially I think as people were laid off and maybe they had felt loyal up until that point to their company, maybe that, you know, most likely they were laid off with no notice.

And so they started to say, well, what is it that I, you know, I, I need to be loyal to myself, not my company. And so what does that look like? And a lot of people started businesses, whether it was out of necessity or out of the opportunity that they had to, you know, spend the time to do that. And flexibility is a big factor.

And so people found from the pandemic that they could have more flexibility, especially with so many jobs going remote that weren't allowed to be remote before. and one thing that working for yourself gives you is a lot more flexibility than working for an employer. And a lot of employers are hanging on to this idea of returning to the office of working these very specific hours, not really allowing flexibility.

And I think that's part of people questioning. Okay. Do I really wanna work for an employer or can I do this for myself? But then, you know, I think the second part of your question is how does that impact pay and are people asking for enough? And one of the things that I found was that one of the hardest things, other than just naming my business, that actually was challenging for me.

I was kind of surprised by that, but I would say the next most difficult thing was pricing. And when you look at pricing calculators online that are telling you, this is the hourly rate you should charge. If you were making this much a year and how to translate that to account for additional business costs to account for time selling, you know, all of those things.

I found that they were much too low to actually account for growing a business and particularly not having that steady. Income that you have when you're with a full-time employer. So they might be telling you, this is the hourly rate, but they're thinking, okay, you're automatically working 30, 40 hours a week, which is not the case.

When you first start to build a business. And particularly if you're billing your clients hourly, which there's pros and cons to hourly versus, you know, billing. Like a project rate, or you can have a retainer, which I think is probably the best way to do it, but it just depends on the type of work you're doing.

I think that people need to just charge more, a lot of the time, that's what I'm finding. So when people have asked me about it and even with myself and setting my prices, I found I was charging too little, to begin with. And that's what I found from other people that I've discussed it. 

[00:11:19] Wendy Manganaro: So, I have a follow-up question because, and, I really am curious about this. Do you think it's, a lot of this is the idea of what show is about changing your mindset around money, changing your mindset about how we take care of ourselves as business owners, you know, physically, mentally, spiritually. So when it comes to this pay idea of, of us being paid, what we're supposed to be paid, do you think that it's a mindset issue, a cultural issue? Or do you think that it's worth issues? And I'll tell you a very quick scenario. With my old business partner, her ideology. Because of, I think the way that, that she grew up and, and trying to be a female, doing what she did She, she would price ridiculously high, knowing that any man we put a proposal in front of us was going to try to take the price down.

Mm-hmm, it was an exhausting way to do business. I can tell you from experience. And when I started my own company, I was like, Nope, that's my price. You can get a discount if you wanna pay up front, but that's my price. I'm not going to mark up higher or lower with the ideology that, because I'm a female, you're gonna automatically try to price me lower cuz you're not my type of client then.

So, you know, in your experience is it a cultural thing? Is it a thing that we were raised with? Is it a mindset thing that we don't think we're worth it? What do you think goes on when we go to deal with pricing? 

[00:12:46] Jocelyn Thompson: I think it all comes back to society and culture, because even the mindset piece is because of the culture that we were raised in and the messaging that we received all throughout our lives, you know, growing up, but then also getting into the workforce and it's those reinforcing of gender stereotypes, you know, it's the patriarchy, but I think, you know, one thing that needs to shift obviously is systemic structures.

Around pay and excitingly. It is it's not moving fast enough, but there are changes. We're seeing major shifts in the last couple of years, particularly with this year double the companies that we're planning to do pay equity audits last year are now planning to do them like twice the number. So that's really exciting.

We're seeing cultural systemic shifts in this conversation around pay. When it comes to mindset, I think the major thing that we need to change, and I believe this is true for myself as well. Even though I do this work is talking more about pay. So talking about what we're making, talking about, what we're charging, being more transparent.

There are some risks in that, of course, because you know, If you're, if you're fully transparent with your pay, someone like you're saying could try to negotiate you down from there. They could potentially pay you less if they were planning to pay more. But I think overall we benefit from transparency, particularly like talking.

I think, you know, in this example where you're talking to female entrepreneurs about how do they figure out what to charge talking to each other and making sure, you know, telling each other charge more. I think that's a big piece of what needs to be happening is, you know, talking to each other and knowing that you're worth what you're charging or more.

And that what you're asking from potential clients is what you're worth. And you're always gonna get no's with potential clients. So I had heard something, somebody had said that you need to talk to 10 potential clients to sign two. Don't it's just an anecdotal thing I heard. I don't know the source, but the idea behind it is that you have to talk to a lot of people to get people, to sign on with you.

And so getting those nos shouldn't make you feel like you wanna lower your price. And if people don't wanna pay your price, it means they don't value the work you're doing. And so you should move on. I mean, it's like you said, Those aren't my clients. And it's really hard to say no to people like, no, I won't discount my price.

These are conversations I've had to have recently when I've been asked for discounts. And I've just said, no, because you know, you wanna be able to work with people, but at the same time, you need them to value the work that you're doing. And if you charge a really low rate, they're just not gonna value it.

And when you get in there, it's probably not gonna be the outcome that you are hoping for from that work. That's what I've found when I discounted my prices. 

[00:15:55] Wendy Manganaro: I concur and nevermind that you always end up taking a client. You probably rather not take at that point. And it does go to value. So in that idea, I wanted to ask you about this because what I've seen happen is when we're talking about value because it's easy. 

I think there's this ideology between what I can do as a business owner. So now I don't wanna pay you to do that as a business owner, but you may not have the expertise in that area. That's what you're paying for. You're Paying for what's easy for, yes, it is easy for us to do. It would take us two seconds to do it because this is what we do for a living. You have those people who all come in, and again, that's part mindset on their side. Why would I pay you that? 

[00:16:42] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah. I think that when we're thinking about our value and people sort of coming to us, cuz it sounds to me like you're saying, well, do we tell 'em no, we won't do it.

Do we try to explain the value? I think sometimes there's a worth in explaining the value, but I do think it's sticking to the price and understanding that. The work they're paying for is not always the hours that you put into something, because if you've spent your career building an expertise, which most people who are starting businesses have they're paying for that expertise.

And so, you know, as a HR professional, I can write a handbook and, you know, put out this great handbook and say, it takes me 10 hours from start to finish with edits and everything. However, I built my whole career on understanding employment law and not having to look up and research every piece. And so that's part of what you're paying for, right?

That, that somebody has taken the time to learn something and become an expert in something. And we need to remember as women entrepreneurs that somebody's paying us for our expertise. And even if they feel like they could do it themselves, they can't do it as.

So if they wanna do it themselves. Sure. Go ahead. right. But they're not gonna be able to do it as well, or as efficiently as we're going to be able to do it cuz we're the experts. 

[00:18:09] Wendy Manganaro: I have a backup question to what we were talking about earlier is that because I get asked this a lot and now as a marketing perspective, I have a perspective.

So I don't wanna put my 2 cents in yet. How do you feel about women entrepreneurs who put their prices on their websites? Does it help them, or does it hurt them? I have a perspective under marketing side, I'm I'm curious as to what you think. 

[00:18:34] Jocelyn Thompson: I guess I have mixed feelings.

I, I really like the idea of it from a pay transparency perspective. I think that it can make a conversation with potential clients easier because they've likely already gone on and seen that. And they're not gonna waste your time if they don't wanna play, pay your prices. So I think that's really beneficial.

The struggle I've had and why I've never done it with my company when I was doing consulting was that every client is so different. And every project for what I was doing was so different that they're, I really wanted to have here's the service I offer and here's how much it costs. But I just never got there with the business where it was this is the one thing people are asking me for.

And so what I found is because businesses are so different, I had to offer different services to different size businesses, different industries, all those things. And so, it just wasn't feasible for me. But I think there are pros and cons to it, I guess would be my answer. 

[00:19:38] Wendy Manganaro: Yeah, that's interesting, and I have pros and cons with the two, but it's not for any of those 

reasons.

[00:19:44] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:19:44] Wendy Manganaro: It's totally funny. Cause, cause what I've always been experienced and taught is that more likely than not, you don't put your prices on because people price shop before knowing your value. So they're, they're prejudging based on. And the other side of that is that there's a lot of people who do the whole funnel system of here's my prices and you can get this discounted for this and, and you're already lessening your value before they even talk to you when you kind of have all of that spellt out.

To the reverse, those price shopping, as you said, though, who are like, no, that's not even in my realm, it was probably a good thing. Those who are kind of in the fringe, that's kind of who it hurts because they, they shop the price without shopping is this the best solution for me? And hopefully, you know, the idea is that every client that comes to a company is like, is this the best solution for me? 

So that's a little bit different where yes, you have the price shopping, which will throw you out, but there is this other idea too, which is very interesting because it's the opposite of what you were saying about being more transparent.

I think a lot with female businesses don't share anything we're doing because they're afraid somebody else is going to take their money.

[00:20:58] Jocelyn Thompson: Mm-hmm, 

[00:20:59] Wendy Manganaro: Which is definitely a mindset issue in itself. 

[00:21:03] Jocelyn Thompson: I mean, the scarcity mindset is rea,l and that is, you know, that's a product of white supremacy. And so we have to remember that that is built into our capitalist system to try to get us to compete with each other when we don't need to.

The reality and what I've said for my business in particular with pay equity is there's so much work out there that. You know, I have this class where I teach people how to do pay equity audits. And one of the questions I've gotten is aren't you afraid that you're gonna teach people and then they'll do it as a consultant, you know, as a consultant and take my clients.

And I don't consult with clients anymore. I just teach the class. But at the time when I was still doing the pay equity audit as a consultant service, I was like, no, because I want other consultants to do this because the pay gap still exists and I want it to not exist for everyone. Right. This is a collective thing.

It's not just about me getting more money. And so I wanna teach as many people as I can to do this pay equity audit so we can close this gap. And I know that there's so many companies that need this audit that I'm not afraid. Someone's gonna take a client from me. And I think that's just the the mentality that we need to have.

And particularly in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space too. One of the things that I felt really strongly with my business is promoting other people doing D E, and I work because everybody's D E and I is so broad. I mean, diversity. There's so many facets of identity and marginalized identities that we need to be thinking about, especially in the employment space, but it's also broader than that.

And for me working with other de and I practitioners learning from each other, promoting each other was the best way to do business and kind of the only way to do business. So it's eliminating the scarcity mindset because we all need each other, right? We're this collective society. And we actually benefit, well, everybody gets lifted up.

[00:23:18] Wendy Manganaro: I cannot agree more. And you know, as you were talking, I was thinking about a conversation I have a lot with my clients when they're coming up with packages is, and it goes with this idea. I have a lot of clients who'll do like a really little tiny offer for little bit of money.

Right. And then they jump to the skyrocket price to their next offer. People who can jump from 9 99 to $5,000, there's not many like, so it's okay to, to have smaller offers, but I always think that they always have to be within reason.

And I I've done enough campaigns to know the 9 99 stuff takes as much work sometimes based on who we are, then what you're offering at $5,000. And I'm not against doing freebies and offering stuff, but like, how do you get past the mindset of I don't wanna miss any clients.

So I'm gonna do this really, really low offer, and then I'm gonna try to upsell them. And it's not even the correct up sale. 

[00:24:10] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah, I think, cuz I'm actually thinking about this and I'm doing a very, very low offer of $99 for a course.

It's a, you know, a quick intro to pay equity and the way that I think about it is sure it'd be great. If someone takes that and then takes my four week course. But that's not the goal for me. The goal for me is just to as many people as possible, I wanna educate about pay equity and get them in and make a little bit of money off it.

But one of the things I've thought about with creating it is it needs to be zero maintenance. Right. I can't spend a bunch of time on this $99 offering because it's not worth my time. Right. That money. I'm not gonna bring enough in to be every week, maintaining this course, updating videos, updating content.

It needs to be sort of timeless, which is hard with pay equity, cuz it's changing all the time, but there are pieces, right? That are foundational. That can be timeless. And so. In thinking through this, I've thought about how do I make this offer, where I'm not spending a lot of time on it and it's worth having it out there for that inexpensive price of $99.

[00:25:18] Wendy Manganaro: Right 

[00:25:19] Jocelyn Thompson: And so I think you're absolutely right. I think sometimes it's worth upselling someone when you have a less expensive offering, but sometimes you have to really make sure that the price matches the effort. And that's, you know, the effort and the expertise, right?

Because sometimes it's not, you know, it might still be low effort, but you've got that expertise in there. And so, right? That's really important. 

[00:25:44] Wendy Manganaro: That's really, really important. Okay. How do we get to the point of I gotta look at my prices? My thing is when I start to hear I don't know if this is yours, as far as like changing prices is I don't enjoy this anymore, and it's usually because you're sort of getting resentment, cuz you're working more than what you're getting paid for. Could you offer how to change the thinking and then actually practical things to see what you're supposed to get paid?

[00:26:08] Jocelyn Thompson: So for the mindset, I have a couple thoughts. One is just to practice talking about your pay in a really safe spaces. So maybe if you have kids. It's talking about it with your kids, cuz, by the way, that's still taboo, right? People don't talk about how much they make with their kids, which I think is a, a huge disservice, not talking about money with kids because where else are you gonna learn it?

Mm-hmm so that can be a safe space, or if it's your best girlfriend and you feel comfortable, or you know, whoever it is that you feel and sometimes you know, with friends, I'll say, do you, do you mind sharing what you make? You know, and sharing that as well. It's still a taboo subject, and it's still hard to talk about, but just practicing when you feel like it's safe.

The second piece, one thing that I did is, you know, as I said, I was charging too little when I started and I increased my prices and one of the things I did to. I don't know if it was to convince myself or just remind myself not to take less is I put the number of what was, you know, sort of my hourly rate I was shooting for on a sticky note.

And I put it on my computer. 

[00:27:17] Wendy Manganaro: I love that.

[00:27:18] Jocelyn Thompson: Just as a reminder, that this is what I'm worth, I'm not asking for less. So that was really helpful for me. The second part, as far as actions, I think maybe remind me that part of the question.

[00:27:29] Wendy Manganaro: Where do I go to to see if I'm getting paid correctly? 

[00:27:32] Jocelyn Thompson: As I mentioned, so for business owners, I think it's really hard because when, when I talk to people who are job searching to work for a company, for me, the best resource is pay scale and they have this ability on their website.

You go to payscale.com and you can price a job. And you can price one job for free. So if your job searching, you put in your email address and you know, they'll send you a report of the job you price. And that, to me is super valuable for people who are looking for a job with the company. You can also do that as a consultant, but translating that to your rates, whether it's hourly, Per project, or retainer fee, I think is really challenging.

What I did over time was look at what was I wanting to make for the year and trying to sort of back work backwards to figure out how I would get there. One of the things I did was I use a tool called toggle track or toggle tracker. It's T O G G L. No E. And I would record how much time things were taking me because I had come from working internally with companies and I had just never seen how much time I was spending on things.

Right. And so that was really helpful for me to start to think about translating that to an hourly rate, which has to be much higher than the hourly rate you make internally with a company. So just always keep that in mind. But when I was trying to translate it and realizing, okay, this project actually takes me this much time.

This project actually takes me this much time. That helped me a little bit to figure out where I was spending my time and, you know, figuring out my productivity with 

things. 

[00:29:21] Wendy Manganaro: I love that. And actually, when I was running my agency, that's what we ended up doing. And to that point, and not intentionally, I just think some things take longer than we think in our head.

[00:29:31] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah. 

[00:29:31] Wendy Manganaro: Whether it's because we don't like to do 'em and it's on our favorite, whatever it is. But then when you put it on paper and you start to see, and you're like, My hourly rate that I thought I was getting is actually here. 

[00:29:42] Jocelyn Thompson: Yeah. 

[00:29:42] Wendy Manganaro: Based on the productivity of what we're actually seeing. And so if you were aiming for an hourly rate, are you really getting it based on time?

And, although I am all for mindfulness and affirmations I also think that there's got to be a, a practical piece of it.

 I wanna ask you, cuz I know you do have an offer for our audience. I wanna make sure that, that we can ask you how they can find you. You can let them know. And what offer you have? 

[00:30:08] Jocelyn Thompson: Yes. So my company is called work, vision consulting. So we're at work vision consulting.com. They can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. LinkedIns, probably the best place to find me and connect with me. People can definitely add me Jocelyn Thompson work, vision consulting.

If they wanna search me on LinkedIn. And just, you know, put a little note about the podcast. I love that people have heard me or read something I wrote. So that's, a great way to connect with me. I offer a few different things. So one thing that I am really excited about is I do a happy hour that happens anywhere from once a month to every two months.

It just depends on, on scheduling, but that happy hour is diversity equity and inclusion focused and employee experience focused. So if people are interested in talking about those things, they can join, we usually have about 10 people and we just have these really amazing discussions where people will bring workplace issues that they're facing or even company issues.

You know, a lot of times, consultants will come and say, how do I deal with this? And we just talk through it, which is really fun. So they can connect with me on LinkedIn, and I'll send them an invite to that. And then the course that I teach, which is a four-week course teaching people how to do a pay equity audit from start to finish, is called cultivating equitable compensation.

The plan is to do those two to three times a year. And then coming soon will be the mini-course which will just be to get people's feet wet.

So if they're not sure if they wanna dive into compensation work or pay equity work, they can just go there and, and you know, take the short course to understand what does it all mean? What's the history, what are the laws, all of that? 

[00:31:56] Wendy Manganaro: Well, thank you so much, Jocelyn. Thank you for joining me today. I'm so excited, and I think that we did a good cross between mindfulness and wealth consciousness.

We have somebody coming up on the show about that, but this is the first step, right? Like if you can't pay yourself, it's hard to get to. So I thank you so much for being on the show. It has been delightful. You've been delightful. 

[00:32:18] Jocelyn Thompson: Thank you so much. 

[00:32:19] Wendy Manganaro: Thank you.