Everything’s negotiable, but not for everyone

Stereotypes about employees with disabilities hamper their ability to negotiate fair salaries
Employees with disabilities negotiating salaries. An illustration with a anthropomorphized 87 cents walks with a cane and talks to an anthropomorphized $1 who wears a tie.

The United States banned pay discrimination against people with disabilities in 1990, but full-time employees with disabilities still only make 87 percent of what those without disabilities make.

That disparity impacts the one in 10 Americans who go to work every day with a disability, but little is understood about why, said Mary Eve Speach, assistant professor of management at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business.

“The number of employees with disabilities entering the workforce is growing each year,” Speach said. “We are not just talking about people who use a wheelchair or have a hearing impairment. Disability spans a lot of conditions, from anxiety to PTSD and autism spectrum disorder.

“It affects more individuals than you might think, and we find there hasn’t been much research done on their experience in the workplace.”

Speach set out to find out why the pay disparity between employees with and without disabilities persists despite employers seeming more open to hiring and working to accommodate employees with disabilities. 

In her paper “Everything is Negotiable but Not for Everybody: The Role of Disability in Compensation,” Speach and her co-authors discuss how the salary negotiation process breaks down for applicants with disabilities.

She found pay differences resulted from how ingrained stereotypes shape employer and job candidate behavior during salary negotiations. Previous management research has shown job candidate and employer biases can sabotage the negotiation process for women and people of color, resulting in salary disparities.  

In a pilot study, Speach asked a group of hiring managers to evaluate a group of hypothetical job candidates who shared identical qualifications. Some candidates disclosed disabilities while others did not, but the hiring managers offered similar initial salary offers to both candidate sets.

“We found there was no difference,” Speach said. “The hiring managers offered the same salary to everybody. The difference is coming about in the negotiation process.”

In a subsequent study, Speach’s team recruited a group of job candidates to negotiate with a computer bot impersonating a hiring manager. They found job candidates with disabilities negotiated lower final salaries than those without.

Salaries were pushed even lower when job candidates perceived the world as being more biased against those with disabilities.

“What we found in the negotiation process is employees with disabilities were abiding by a stereotype that they are ‘agreeable’ and ‘not assertive’ by not negotiating very assertively. That tendency was heightened if the person with the disability held a view that society at large discriminates against those with disabilities.”

Speach also found people with disabilities were penalized for violating that stereotype by advocating for themselves.

In a third study, a group of hiring managers negotiated with bot simulations of job candidates — some of whom had a disability and some who did not.

Both candidate bots used the same negotiation scripts. But when hiring managers negotiated with candidates with disabilities who were more adamant about their salary requests, they were seen as less likable and overly aggressive.

“The hiring managers did not expect the person with a disability was going to negotiate,” Speach said. “They were operating under a stereotype that this person is going to be very warm, friendly, and non-threatening. Then — all of a sudden — they start to negotiate, and it’s perceived as aggressive.”

Not only do the newly-hired employees end up with a lower negotiated salary, but they are also viewed as likeable. Given this social consequence, those with disabilities may also have a negative reputation with that hiring manager when starting their new positions.

“That’s not to say job candidates with disabilities shouldn’t negotiate,” Speach said. “The responsibility is really on the organization to train the hiring managers that candidates with disabilities might not be negotiating in the same ways the managers are used to.”

Practices used by female job candidates or people from marginalized backgrounds to increase pay equity can also work for people with disabilities, Speach said. Companies could offer candidates with disabilities the last negotiated salary for the same position or incentives for hiring managers who work to establish pay parity.

All companies should be asking their employees with disabilities about salary negotiations to see what types of improvements would make the process easier and more equitable.

“We’re all supposed to have the right to negotiate,” Speach said. “But we know there are discrepancies and caveats. I think this research shows, specifically for employees with disabilities, that there are unique barriers when it comes to getting the salaries they deserve. I believe this research sheds light on how we can improve this important process for these employees.”