Favoritism on Differentiated Salary - Both employees have same qualifications and amount of experience

by Justina Nelson
(Cordova, TN U.S.A)

This was supposed to be a lateral offer. A white and Hispanic male employees applied for the position. I was the Admin. Asst. to the Sr. Manager doing the hiring process. I was about starting work on the offer letters when my boss called me to his office and told me to incorporate $32,000/yr for the Hispanic guy, and $40,000/yr for the white guy. This, I feel is a classic case of workplace racially motivated favoritism!

Response from Carl: Based on what you've written I really can't tell what this situation is. Just because someone gets paid more than another person doesn't mean it's favoritism.

One of the biggest fallacies about job searching that always gets perpetuated is that all things being equal, people should be paid the same for the same job. Why? What if one person asked for $32K and the other guy asked for $40K. Are you going to give the $32K guy $40K just to make things fair? You often get what you ask for and if you don't ask for it, you don't get it. Maybe it's favoritism maybe it isn't. You don't give enough details for me to figure it out.

Carl