Measuring progress

An important method of understanding whether your GEAP is achieving positive change is through regularly monitoring, measuring and reporting the outcomes of your actions over time.

Under section 19(3)(b) of the Act, you are required to report on the progress you have made through the strategies in your GEAP, every second year after 2021 (please note that this submission deadline for the first round of progress reports was extended from October 2023 to February 2024). Further guidance on how to prepare and submit your progress report to the Commission will be available in the future. In advance of that guidance, you should ensure you are regularly monitoring your progress.

We recommend using a project management tool such as excel to help you track your progress in implementing your strategies and measures. To monitor your progress, map your objectives against your strategies, timeframes and milestones to ensure implementation stays on track.

Your 2021 workplace gender audit results and GEAP will form your organisational baseline. Different strategies and measures might require different monitoring and review timeframes. Consider whether you can integrate monitoring your progress into your business-as-usual processes as part of your annual review, pre-budgeting and annual reporting.

Consider allocating a specific evaluation budget to enable external evaluation of how your strategies and measures could be improved for your next GEAP.

Progress on implementation and impact of the strategies and measures in your GEAP should be regularly reported to a governance group and/or leadership (including any people assigned overall accountability for GEAP progress in 'Leadership and resourcing your GEAP' to ensure that there is oversight for implementation, and so that any delays or issues can be raised and resolved as quickly as possible.

Ideally, your GEAP should document how progress will be reported, to whom, and how frequently. This should include submission of your biennial progress report to the Commissioner and publication on your defined entity’s website.

To monitor and communicate your progress with your staff, you may wish to create an achievement register. This will allow you to log both process and impact achievements to share with employees and the public. This may include completed programs, process improvements, policy updates or any other achievements relevant to your GEAP.

Ideally, your GEAP will include a high-level implementation plan which outlines the timeframes for communicating, implementing and reporting progress against the strategies and measures in your GEAP. Ongoing consultation and communication with your employees and employee representatives could be included in this plan. Further advice on how to complete an implementation plan including communication is available on our website.