Like most women, speaker and journalist Meggie Palmer felt frustrated when confronted with gender pay gap data. But within the disheartening stats, she also saw possibility.
“When you see something that really pisses you off, you go about figuring out how can you fix it”, Ms Palmer told On the Job with Francis Leach & Sally Rugg.
“I just didn’t want to sit around and wait for governments, maybe at some point to change policy, and maybe societal opinions of women’s work to shift. I just kind of wanted to do something.”
Ms Palmer’s mission to help close the gender pay gap led to the development of the PepTalkHer – an app designed to support women negotiate pay rises.
“You might have heard of this concept of imposter syndrome and sometimes you feel like you’re not that good at your job and you end up spiralling in a negative way and focusing on all the things you didn’t do, or the mistakes you did made, as opposed to focusing, reflecting and recording all the successes,” explained Ms Palmer.
“The app is about reminding people that they’re awesome at keeping track of those awesome things that they’ve done and giving them a framework to discuss those awesome things in a way that’s going to position you such that you can get that promotion, such that you can get that pay raise that you’re looking for.”
With the gender pay gap sitting around 14% in Australia, Ms Palmer acknowledges that closing it requires macro, societal change but believes helping individual women see their worth in the workplace and obtain more pay will have a positive ripple effect.
“To have significant change, we’re going to need stuff to happen at a macro level and we’re going to need legislative change as well.
“PepTalkHer comes in at the grassroots level.
“It’s about a shift in mindset, because that will last for an entire career.”
Listen to the full interview with Meggie Palmer and make your working life better by subscribing to the new podcast On the Job with Francis Leach & Sally Rugg.
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Closing the gender pay gap – there’s an app for that