A Malaysia-founded Instagram account recently went viral the day it launched – and for good reason. Relying on user submissions via the account owner’s Instagram direct messages, kept anonymous at the point of posting, @malaysianpaygap seeks to spark more discussions surrounding salaries and wages.

The idea is simple: be transparent about what we’re being paid → use this information to advocate for better salary.

I see the value of an account like this, especially since it’s hosted on a platform like Instagram, where both public and private reshares, personal saves, and user comments can easily drive the virality of bite-sized posts.

So we’ve got awareness, virality, and now, a community.

What next?

#1: Realize the truth behind pay disparity

I’ve always advocated for wage transparency between peers – a lot more often when I was in my early 20s – until I realized that there are more nuances involved than just plain ol’ transparency. 

Humans are complex beings with a range of emotions, and a common pattern we see with topics that advocate for the voiceless and the underserved is that it is often those that are plagued or are closer to the situation that would be more likely to speak up. 

The ones that have more power to wield, and the ones that have perhaps escaped the shackles of being overworked and underpaid, are now less likely to speak up, because it has become so far removed from their reality. In actual fact, these are the people who need to be standing up for those who can’t. So how do you get them to pay attention?

For a systemic issue like pay disparity, we need more than just sharing of stories. There’s this thread in the Lowyat forum that I spent months perusing late at night back when I was severely underpaid. The community’s postings provided me an insight into how much others were paid – plus it had more details and provided a space for back and forth. But knowing was not even half the battle.

Given the power dynamics between the employer and employee, it’s easy to see how as a potential candidate, you may seem to be at the losing end. Most companies look to the minimum acceptable wage that they can pay their employees, and let it be. 

Do they care whether what they’re paying their employees is an income that can sustain a decent standard of living? Most underpaid Malaysians are in a predicament where their employers don’t. Hence, the popularity of @malaysianpaygap.

At this point, we know how we can be underpaid in our respective industries, but where do we go from here?

What are the avenues in place? How can we get people in power and of influence to institutionalize change in the workplace, so that everyone in a company stops being underpaid? 

Can we finally have a more accurate benchmark for a living wage, especially in cities like Kuala Lumpur? I’m no policymaker, but I believe that as much work there is that needs to be done on a higher level, we can do what we can do now – optimize for ourselves here on the ground level today.

#2: Research, research, and then research some more

Are you doing your research? How are you doing your research? Are you using sites like Glassdoor to make your comparison?

Who are you speaking to? Are you speaking to peers, and not just any peer but those that are in similar positions or industries? 

Are you reaching out to connections, humbly requesting for their time, their two cents, their ability to connect you to their connections for you to carry out your research?

Are you widening your base of what you think you know, to get the edge that you need, so that you’re not on the losing end from minute one of your interview with a recruiter?

Why is this important? When I was job searching two years ago, already knowing then that I was underpaid, I was interviewing for roles that I knew would mean taking on more responsibilities and leading a team. 

Prior to my calls with recruiters, I would do my research and find comparable numbers for someone in my field through user contributions on Glassdoor. I had a range in mind, and I had a number that I knew I wanted.

Whenever I would share with recruiters my expected salary when asked, some would gently point out that I was asking for a bump that was unconventional for anyone trying to move from one company to another.

According to them, a 10-15% bump is the norm, and in rare cases, the best they can do is 20%. Mind you, this was the initial interview. I hadn’t even talked to the hiring manager at this point.

I didn’t recognize it then, but that was a red flag. Toxic partners are not the only ones that would gaslight you.

But I was always ready with the knowledge in my head that what I was asking was aligned with industry norms for the role. I would stand firm, and say, “I understand, but this is the number for my asking salary.”

The recruiter was making a comparison between my then-salary and my ask for my future one. If someone had been underpaid their entire careers, why should their future prospects be bound by their past pay instead of their future responsibilities at the new company?

It’s also why I’m huge on equity: helping everyone get to a level playing field for them to succeed. But that’s a topic for another day.

Back to pay disparity, this is why doing the research is important, and why your ultimate weapon is knowledge.

#3: Empower yourself to demand your number and stand firm with your ask

…and I don’t mean empowerment by way of knowledge that you’re underpaid. Knowledge alone of your lack of compensation is not the ammunition you think you can bring to your employer.

Employers only have something to lose when you can show them that you’re the best candidate for that role and you are indispensable. But first, let’s go back to the beginning, to during the recruitment process when you’re being interviewed.

How are you equipping yourself with the knowledge to ask for your desired pay? Let’s look at making negotiation practice sessions a norm, not just practice interview sessions. I know I still need them, and am often shy about doing these sessions with the people closest to me, for fear of being judged. 

There’s so many mistakes that I committed in my early years because I didn’t know it was on me to demand what I wanted. That not asking for the number that I am comfortable with would cost me years of bitterness towards a company. 

A lot of us believe that you can have an “asking number”, but that ultimately, you are bound to what the company would agree to pay you. To some extent, that is true. But for most of us, we’re not pushing back enough. 

We think we need to meet them in the middle because we are afraid they’ll rescind the offer, but are they meeting us halfway? They did make us an offer, after all, and have spent considerable resources recruiting us, so they have some to lose too.

I always go back to this: If it’s not a number you can imagine being woken up at 3am for, it’s not a number you should settle with.

Although, and this is obvious given my previous spiels on work-life balance, I do not want to work for a company where I’ll be woken up at 3am, unless it’s an absolute life-or-death emergency.

#4 Be accountable to yourself

It’s natural to always want more. Just as you want more for your next role, the company also wants more with regards to keeping their hiring cost and talent expenditure way under budget. 

We already know that employers are not going to explicitly tell you that you’re short-changing yourself if your ask is way below industry norms. So you are responsible for doing all of the above – research, demand, stand firm – when it comes to keeping a company accountable. 

I’m not saying companies can’t be doing better. But the more we demand for what we’re comfortable with, the less we settle, and the likelier we can shape an employer-candidate relationship where it’s 50/50.

Of course, with all that being said, these are also offers that you have to be ready to walk away from. One of the crutches I often see candidates have is that they get fixated on how long they’ve been job searching and how much they’ve invested into the process, that they will readily accept what’s on the table because, compared to whatever else they currently have, that is the best choice.

But had they zoomed out a bit more, they’ll be able to see that in the grand scheme of things, settling can lead to continued unhappiness. 

#5 Negotiate, or it will cost you dearly

If you’re not negotiating, you are losing out.

Talking about money is uncomfortable, I know. But you know what else I know? In my relationship, when we finally crossed the initial hurdle of talking about our personal debts in our first year of being together, it became increasingly easy to talk about personal finances with each passing year. 

First, it was talking about personal debts in hushed tones and over tears. Then, it was sharing about our intentions with savings and investments. And just three weekends ago, my partner taught me how to view my retirement fund categories on paper, all because I raised a question about how to land on a number. I honestly love how easy it’s become, and I see negotiation the same way.

Most of us don’t get enough practice, because the times when we’d need to are far and few between. Unless our day-to-day depended on negotiations, most of us only wield this skill when we’re between jobs. 

So yes, negotiating is going to be uncomfortable at first. But the more you do it, the more you’ll flex the muscle of fighting and advocating for yourself. 

Final words

It takes more than awareness and transparency to bridge the pay gap. Nuances like a lack of institutional education, limited exposure to skills that are actually demanded by the industry, and a finite amount of people you can turn to for advice, all play a part in candidates settling for less than they deserve in Malaysia.

If you really ask me, I believe that it’s the Ministry of Human Resource and policymakers that work with them that need to implement policy changes and institutionalize change. But until that happens, and if you have the privilege to, you as a candidate should accept that you have the power to make these moving parts work for you.

Employers bear the responsibility, but until you show and demand to be paid based on industry standards, you’re not going to be paid fairly.

So, will you advocate for yourself to make sure you’re no longer underpaid working in Malaysia?