Actively eliminating the gender pay gap is an important milestone for Portable, particularly in an industry where pay gaps are the norm. Across our business, the gender pay gap continues to shrink, with women and non-binary employees now earning slightly more than men on average ($128,959 vs. $126,263). This isn’t by accident—it’s the result of deliberate, ongoing work.
How we create pay equity
At Portable, pay equity isn’t just a buzzword—it’s built into how we operate. Every six months, we conduct a thorough pay equity analysis to track our progress, identify gaps, and make meaningful changes. As part of this, we:
- Review salary data across all levels and disciplines to ensure fairness.
- Adjust salaries where necessary to close any identified pay gaps.
- Maintain a strong focus on equitable hiring practices to improve gender balance in disciplines where it’s historically been skewed.
- Support leadership development to create clear pathways for career progression across all genders.
Where we’re seeing progress, and where we still have work to do
The numbers show that our strategies are working, but they also highlight areas where we need to keep pushing:
- Women and non-binary employees in our technology team now earn more than men on average, this is a huge achievement in a traditionally male-dominated field.
- 71% of our lead-level employees identify as women, and women now make up 43% of our senior leadership team, up from 29% two years ago.
- Gender imbalances remain—some disciplines still have a strong gender skew, such as technology (80% men, 20% women/non-binary) and production (90% women/non-binary, 10% men).
- Some salary shifts weren’t the result of direct pay adjustments but were influenced by attrition and promotions - further proof that ongoing monitoring is essential.
Why we aren’t sharing the full report
While we’re committed to transparency, we won’t be sharing the full report publicly. Why? Because protecting our people’s privacy matters. Portable isn’t a massive corporation, our teams are small enough that publishing detailed salary data could unintentionally reveal personal information. Instead we’re sharing key insights, trends, and the steps we’re taking to ensure real pay equity while keeping individual salaries confidential.
Maintaining confidentiality of our employees is also why our non-binary employees are included in the data for women. With our small sample size, it was the advice and guidance we received both internally and externally.
What's next
Pay equity isn’t something we check off a list, it’s an ongoing commitment. We will continue to calibrate salaries and conduct pay equity analyses twice a year to ensure we stay on track. Keep an eye on our LinkedIn page for future updates as we share our progress and learnings.
If you want to work with a business that truly walks the walk on pay equity, reach out, we’d love to hear from you! If you’d like a further conversation with our People and Culture team about the trends we’re seeing and the steps we’re taking, contact Emma or Kathryn at people@portable.com.au.
Let’s keep pushing for equity together.
Not sure of your next step?
Our team can facilitate a Discovery Workshop, where we work with you to define the problem and brainstorm solutions, engineered for your needs.
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