By now you’ve probably heard that Australia has become the first country to mandate workplace targets for gender equality. Employers with 500 or more employees are now required to set, and achieve or improve on, three of six gender equality targets.
The menu of targets to choose from relate to six gender equality indicators. These include the gender composition of your workforce and board, the gender pay gap, flexible working arrangements for all employees and support for those with family or caring responsibilities, consultation with employees on gender equality, and prevention of sexual harassment, harassment on the ground of sex or discrimination.
Quick snapshot
- Target requirements apply to public and private sector employers with 500 or more employees.
- At least one target must be numeric.
- Employers have until 31 March 2026 to select three targets. These targets need to be included in reports submitted in April and May 2026.
- Employers have three years to achieve, or make progress on, each of their selected targets.
- The changes will impact nearly 2,000 employers.
- If employers do not select, make progress on or achieve the targets, they will fail to comply and may not be eligible to tender for certain Commonwealth contracts.
- The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) will publish an employer’s chosen targets alongside existing employer data. Outcomes on the selected targets will also be published at the end of the period.
What steps should your organisation take now?
Having worked with hundreds of organisations over the past decade to help them set and achieve gender diversity goals, we advise three key steps. It’s important to get started now so that targets can be meaningful and the chances of misinformation about the ‘why’ are minimised.
- Develop a communications plan that explains the new requirements, and why setting targets tailored to your organisation can help to improve gender balance and create more flexible and inclusive workplace cultures. A communications plan will be most effective when it addresses the four common employee responses to diversity and inclusion efforts, including people who are’ excited supporters’, people who are ‘calm compliers’, people who are ‘on the fence’, and people who are opposed.
- Conduct a diversity and inclusion audit that includes a comprehensive gender pay gap analysis. This will identify any cultural, structural or behavioural barriers to achieving gender equality and diversity progress. This is an effective way to assess current state challenges and prepare tailored plans that will help you set and achieve targets.
- Prepare a gender equality action plan highlighting actions to be taken. This is likely to include opportunities and ways to build on cultural strengths (the things to ‘do more of’) that are key to achieving long-term sustainable progress.
How we can help
We can help you achieve those three key steps.
Having worked with more than 700 organisations over the past 15 years to support gender equality, and diversity and inclusion progress more broadly, we know how to tailor the most effective solutions for specific challenges.
The work we do benefits your business in many ways – by creating opportunities for greater innovation through diversity of thinking, by helping you attract and keep talent, and by improving team performance through a focus on safe and inclusive team cultures.
Gender equality is one of many areas of focus for us. We take an intersectional approach to our research and consulting, recognising that barriers to gender equality are particularly likely to impact women who experience multiple disadvantage.
Our team includes Vanessa Paterson, one of Australia’s leading gender equality specialists, who worked with the WGEA for more than 20 years in executive roles.
