My friend Lisa Haneberg over at the Management Craft blog cites an excellent article from HR Capitalist on how to deal with pay inequities.  Kris Dunn shares the following scenario.  You're a young manager new to your role, and after 2-3 months, you finally get some payroll data on your team.  You're scrolling through the detail and BAM!  Sally, your direct report, is making $5K more than you. 

How does that happen?  The answer?  It's complicated.  Sally was hired for a different role and was slotted into her current job in a reorganization.  Sally has 15 years of experience, you have 5-10.  Sally was hired by Bob in Global Sales, and man, did they like to pay a lot up front.  Of course, after you go through the reasons, the reality is the same.  Sally's making more than you, and you're her manager. 

Although it’s technically taboo to compare salaries in the workplace, there are still cases, like the one above, where you might find out information indicating that all is not fair in love and pay.  Kris offers the following tips:

• If the pay information you have is based on rumor or secured through the access your job provides, you probably shouldn't go into the conversation "guns a-blazing" – you’ll hurt your credibility by identifying the direct issue to the powers that be.  Nobody wants to hear that you're combing the payroll records, putting them to memory and stirring the pot.

• If your career is on a solid arc upward, and the identified issue involves a peer or direct report that doesn't deliver what you do, be confident the market will balance the issue over time.  If you're a player and the other person isn't, don't muddy your brand by starting a negative conversation.  The market knows you're a player, and over the course of the next few years, you'll be rewarded.  If you are managing those that make more than you, then that process has already begun. 

• If you have to have a conversation about money, identify who the best person is for that conversation, and keep the negative emotion out of it.   No one wants to hear an emotional rant.  Figure out the best way to ask that person to take a look at the issue on your behalf, and ask them for their help without defining the end result you expect or those that make more than you.   

The bottom line is that if you intend to act on the information you receive, you must proceed with caution.  A stronger way to address the issue of your own subpar salary is probably to go in with data illustrating that the market is paying above what you’re making, not a claim that one individual on your team is.