Karren Brady appeared on Loose Women to urge women to “demand what they are worth” and have the confidence to ask their bosses for a pay rise.
But she was preaching to the converted when it came to the ITV show’s panellist Janet Street-Porter, who said she’d already done just that to ensure she and colleagues got higher salaries.
The 71-year-old former newspaper editor revealed: “Earlier this summer I felt we were underpaid, so I wrote a letter to our boss on behalf of all of us. I didn’t tell them I wrote it.
“I’m the oldest, I’ve got the least to lose, and I’m the most aggressive.”
The letter worked and the stars did all get pay rises – as well all the panellists getting paid the same regardless of their age, experience or celeb status.
“We all earn the same money, everyone doing the same job gets the same money,” Janet explained.
Nadia Sawalha recently confirmed this was the case in an interview with the Mail On Sunday’s Event magazine.
“There’s total and absolute equality. And that’s how it should be,” she said.
The show’s editor Sally Shelford told the mag their ethos of “absolute equality among the presenters” was the reason why it worked so well.
The Apprentice star Karren said the same couldn’t be said for many other British workplaces where she feels women – and particularly mothers – are under valued.
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She has researched the issue for her forthcoming Channel 5 TV show Why Do Men Earn More Than Women?
She said it has been proven that companies are more 50 per cent more profitable when at least 15 percent of senior management are female, yet 41 percent of UK companies have no women in senior roles.
The businesswoman suggested the gender pay gap and lack of top jobs for women was in part due to employers being reluctant to promote mothers and women of child-bearing age because of the career break they might need to take to look after their children.
Karren said more needs to be done to have high quality affordable childcare so mothers can return to work if they wish.
She said as well as attitudes towards working mothers needing to change, women also needed to be more forthright and demand what they are worth, like Janet did.
Stacey Solomon admitted she wouldn’t have the confidence to do this, and would accept a job based on the pay suggested rather than negotiating.
Karen told her: “You are very similar to other women. Seven percent negotiate a pay rise compared to 57 percent of men. So one part of it is women not demanding what they are worth or asking for the pay rise they want.”
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She continued: “A friend in HR told me the majority of women accept a job and then ask what it pays, whereas men ask what it pays and then accept the job.”
If only we all had Janet fighting our corner!
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