Welcome everyone.
My name is Stacey Star. Today we're covering how to complete your gender equality action plan or GEAP under the Gender Equality Act 2020. Our session today will provide you with an overview of what's required, why it's important, and how it can truly make your workplace fairer and more inclusive for all employees. But before we get started I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners our offices are located on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation and I wish to acknowledge them as Traditional Owners. I would also like to pay my respects to elders past and present and Aboriginal elders of other communities who may be here.
Today in this session we'll go through an overview of GEAP's, gender equality action plans, and why they're important. We'll talk about getting started with our guide and template we'll speak about preparing for a GEAP, developing a GEAP, and submitting and publishing your GEAP. And by the end of this presentation our aim is for you to be confident in completing your gender equality action plans. Everything we cover today is detailed in our guidance and we recommend after you watch this to review the guidance if you haven't done so already.
Before we get into it I would like to hand over to our commissioner Dr. Niki Vincent to say a few words.
Thank you Stacey, hello and welcome. The work you're doing is shaping more than policy, it's shaping culture, it's shaping careers, it's shaping lives. Achieving gender equality requires sustained strategic effort, it means challenging the status quo confronting bias and leading with courage a gender equality action plan. Your GEAP is more than a compliance requirement, it's a road map for real and lasting change. Your GEAP identifies barriers, uncovers root causes, and lays out clear steps for action. It's not easy work but it's essential. I hope this webinar gives you the clarity and tools to build a GEAP that makes a real impact your leadership matters.
Thank you for that Niki, I'd now like to start with an overview of gender equality action plans, we have a lot to cover so let's get into this.
What is a gender equality action plan?
Well to achieve workplace gender equality we must identify where we need to change and develop strategies and measures to make positive progress. Your GEAP is a plan to improve gender equality in your workplace, and it aims to make meaningful changes. It is an organisational wide plan. Action plan. It calls for a strategic collaborative process that that includes a mix of skills and engagement at many levels. Your GEAP is about changing your organisation. It's a change management process, it aims to create fair organisational systems. This means fairer outcomes for everyone. This guidance supports your existing change management approaches but doesn't replace them. Developing and implementing your GEAP takes leadership commitment time persistent effort and resources. So why do we complete a gender equality action plan? GEAP's help to address the root causes of gender inequality by ending bias in organisational systems rules decisions policies and practices. Developing a GEAP is also a requirement for duty holders under the gender equality act. A GEAP promotes workplace gender equality and benefits everyone in the workplace. It helps your organisation understand gender equality, identify inequalities, take action, and measure progress. And beyond compliance a GEAP can improve staff well-being, organisational performance, talent attraction and retention, reduce turnover costs, and enhance your organization's reputation.
So let's talk about timing and the relationship between the obligations.
You're required to submit a GEAP every four years with the next one due on the 1st of May 2026. Keeping on top of these dates ensures you remain compliant and can plan your efforts effectively. This slide shows the relationship between the obligations and the submission years for your audit, your gender equality action plans, and your progress reports. You can see here the reason the audit comes before the progress report and GEAP is because your audit informs your gender equality action plan and your progress reports. Your GEAP sets out your plan and your progress report measures progress against that plan every two years.
Getting started with our templates and guidance.
There have been changes to the guidance and the template which have all been formed by consultation with our duty holders and other key stakeholders. The guidance is an aid to help you develop your GEAP. You can use all or parts of the guidance, this will depend on what is useful for your organisation. The guidance takes a step-by-step approach and it walks you through the process of developing your GEAP. We strongly encourage you to use the GEAP template. This will help you make sure that you include everything required under The Act. Using the template will also make it easier for us to assess your GEAP for compliance. The template includes required and recommended items. You must include all of the required items and we encourage you to include the recommended items as well. The recommended actions are there to help you to develop your GEAP and help you think through all of the required elements. We can only assess your organisation for compliance based on the information you provide us. We will not be accepting supporting documents.
We have developed a checklist to ensure you have completed and included everything that you're required to do. This has been developed for your use only and you do not need to submit this. In preparing a GEAP you must include the results of your workplace gender audit strategies and measures for promoting gender equality in the workplace, and these must be based on the results of your audit. You must also consider intersectionality gender equality principles, gender pay equity principles, and you must consult with your governing body employees, employee representatives and any other relevant person. Finally, you must have adequate resourcing to develop and implement your GEAP. The guidance is designed in three parts. Part one covers actions for preparing to develop your GEAP. Part two covers actions to develop your GEAP, and part three is all about what to do after you submit your GEAP. In total, there are thirteen steps right from preparing, developing, through to monitoring your GEAP during implementation up until submission. Though it's best to focus your energy on part one and two which covers steps one through eight, we will speak to each part during this webinar. Now I'll go through a suggested timeline of when to complete each step to meet your reporting obligations.
As you can see there's a lot of work to developing a GEAP, so this timeline suggests for when you should be starting to do the various steps.
May 2025, review guidance for your obligations and prepare for reporting. June 2025 prepare your organisation, so setting up systems, creating working groups, and getting any early engagement from across the organisation. July 2025, extract and collect your audit data, gather information about completed gender impact assessments, and the status of strategies in your previous GEAP for your progress report. That's if you are required to do a progress report. September 2025, use the data quality report on the reporting platform to check your data. October to November 2025, analyse your audit data and begin to prepare the indicators section of your progress report. December 2025, finalise your progress report and start the consultation process on your audit findings. Start developing your GEAP as well. December 1st 2025 is also the deadline to submit your audit. January to March 2026, develop a first draft of your GEAP in consultation with various stakeholders across your organisation. April 2026 finalize your GEAP, obtain organizational approvals and ensure your head of organization completes the attestation. And 1st of May 2026 finally submit your progress report and your GEAP to the Commissioner.
I'd now like to speak about the seven workplace gender equality indicators. Before we get into the details about preparing and developing your GEAP I'd like to outline these indicators which are at the heart of the Gender Equality Act. They represent the key areas where workplace gender inequality persists collectively. They enable us to identify patterns such as a pay gap or areas where people aren't applying for promotions as an example. You will use these indicators to help you to design targeted strategies to improve. You are required to make reasonable and material progress against each indicator and report on this in your progress report as well.
Now let's get into part one preparing your GEAP.
Preparing your GEAP.
This part has recommended actions only, however planning and preparation is key to a well-designed GEAP. These have been included to set you up for success. This step includes reflecting on your previous work, including the wins and the challenges, this is a great place to start before you begin to develop your next GEAP. Applying insights and learnings from your previous GEAP and gender equality work to inform what's next. To be effective in this work it's also important to understand the basics of gender equality. At the very minimum what gender equality is and why it matters. The Gender Equality Act is the first Australian legislation that asks organizations to report on intersectionality. So an understanding of intersectionality and how gender inequality combined with other forms of disadvantage can make things even harder for different groups of people is also essential. As one of the key people responsible for this work it's likely that you are key change agent in your organisation, so having a good understanding of this work and the importance of it will help you to effectively communicate it and successfully roll out any changes required. This step also provides guidance around setting up processes, recordkeeping, good governance, and leadership involvement and commitment. Lastly we provide guidance around learning from other duty holders. Sharing knowledge about gender equality with other organisations is a great way to source ideas. It also helps you see what others in your sector are doing and learning from them. This includes communities of practice and other duty holders in your industry or geographical area.
Next we move to step two outlined in the guidance in the template, analysing your audit data. This is to identify forms of gender inequality. The reason you collect the data is to understand gender inequality in your organization and identify where you need strategies to drive change. Step 2.2 is identifying underlying causes of gender inequality in your organisation. It relies on results against the seven indicators from your audit. Your audit data will point you in the right direction and reveal any inequalities based on gender, and perhaps other forms of discrimination. But it will not explain how or why those inequalities occurred. Your analysis may have revealed lots of problems but prioritise the biggest issues for each of the workplace gender equality indicators.
Now I'd like to speak about performance measures.
The requirement in The Act is to include the results of your audit in your GEAP. The performance measures support you to do this. They help you understand what gender equality or inequality looks like in your organisation on each indicator. These are calculated from audit data that you already collect, so you don't need to extract additional data and they are listed clearly in the template and guidance. All you need to do is add your 2025 audit data against each measure, these measures set out the minimum expectation for what audit data you should include in your GEAP. We chose them because they provide the minimum data you need to get started. They help you focus on the most important data, they are simple and easy to talk to your stakeholders about, and you already collect this data as part of your audit. Using the performance measures helps you see connections. It will also help you drive and assess progress going forward. There are two types of measures. Critical measures which are considered the minimum data you can achieve compliance without providing data against them, however the commissioner prefers that you use these measures and supplementary measures. These are recommended for duty holders with capacity for further analysis. Providing data against supplementary measures helps you to further understand gender inequality issues in your organisation. If your organisation is more progressed in its gender equality journey you can use your own data as well as the performance measures.
Consulting on your audit results.
You must undertake at least one round of consultation, however we recommend you undertake two, including on your audit results, and your strategies. Consultation helps make employees and stakeholders aware of your workplace gender audit findings. It may also help you understand some of the drivers behind your data. For example, consulting with employees and stakeholders from various backgrounds and living experiences may provide valuable insights into barriers to gender equality that they are experiencing in the workplace. It also provides the opportunity to discuss the impact and possible actions for change. This helps you determine, prioritise, and action these issues. If there are existing ways to consult under enterprise agreements and other laws, for example like the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, use them in your GEAP consultation process. Partner with those involved to enhance them if needed and make sure you check out our how-to guides on this topic.
Part two: developing your GEAP
As part of developing your GEAP you must consider the gender pay equity and gender equality principles in your GEAP. This is a new requirement under the gender equality regulations 2020 for the act. Pay means remuneration. It includes, but is not limited to, salary bonuses, overtime allowances, and superannuation. I have included an example of a gender pay equity principle and an example of a gender equality principle in the slide. I won't go into these here though as they're listed in the guidance. The guidance also details ways you can demonstrate you have considered both sets of principles. Some groups of employees may face additional barriers to gender pay equity, we ask you to apply intersectionality to the gender pay equity principles. This means considering how multiple forms of disadvantage can affect the gender pay equity principles for different people.
Considering intersectional gender equality. This is where a person may experience a combination of both gender inequality, and one or more other forms of discrimination. The act requires duty holders to consider intersectional gender inequality, and you must take intersectionality into account when preparing your GEAP, and explain in your GEAP how you did so. Step five is about developing a case for change. A case for change involves explaining why gender equality matters at your workplace. The case for change is mainly for your workforce, however it also explains to the wider community why gender equality matters for you and your organisation. It is a useful communication tool and it helps employees understand why your GEAP matters. As part of your case for change you could also include a vision statement, expresses your organization's long-term goal for gender equality. A strong vision can help to align efforts, energize stakeholders, and create unity. And it helps everyone understand what they're working towards.This can help drive the success of your GEAP. If you do include a vision, ideally it should be employee-lead, easy to understand, and impactful.
Next we move to developing strategies and measures. First, let's talk about strategies. Strategies should address gender inequality on each of the seven workplace gender equality indicators. They should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. So using that SMART acronym. They should target the underlying causes of gender inequality in your organisation and they should use an intersectional approach where possible. This will help you to address any compounding forms of discrimination impacting your employees. It will make your gender equality strategies inclusive and targeted. If you're performing well on an indicator, you should choose a maintenance strategy. That will maintain your positive outcomes. For example, if your governing body has already a balanced gender composition, a maintenance strategy would include an action that any change to the governing body will trigger a review of its gender composition to ensure it remains balanced. Now let's move on to the measures. You must consider how your GEAPP will help your organisation make measurable progress on each of the seven workplace gender equality indicators. Measures help your organisation to assess how your strategies are performing. Monitor the outcome and implementation of your strategies, measure your progress towards gender equality, and track progress towards specific targets. Moving on to documenting your strategies and measures, you must include at least one strategy per indicator. The GEAP template helps you to do this. The template is organised by the seven workplace gender equality indicators, and an additional table is provided for any strategies that fall outside these indicators. If your organisation does not have a governing body, you don't need to include a strategy for this indicator. Please just state this in your GEAP. If you have not identified a gender equality problem for one or more of the indicators, you should still include a maintenance strategy.
Consulting on your strategies.
After drafting your strategies, gather feedback on them. The Act requires you to do at least one round of consultation. Do this by consulting with employees, union representatives, any other employee representatives, and members of your governing body if you have one. Do this before you finalise your strategies. The consultation process will reveal gaps, challenges, and areas for improvement. You must also document your consultation process in your GEAP, state how you consulted at least once with your employees union representatives, other employee representatives, and member of your governing body. At a minimum you must describe the number and format of consultation sessions. You can include extra details about the consultation in the section at the end of the GEAP template for additional comments.
Now let's talk about resourcing.
The Act requires you to allocate adequate resources to developing and implementing your GEAP. This includes making reasonable and material progress on each of the indicators in every 2-year period. The head of your organisation must attest on the GEAP cover page that the resourcing is adequate to implement your GEAP. Providing adequate resources ensures you can make reasonable and material progress on each of the indicators over the 4-year lifespan of your gender equality action plan. You may also like to develop a resourcing plan. Using the GEAP template you can document your resourcing needs assessment, resourcing gaps, and resourcing allocation. You may also want to use a more detailed resourcing plan than the one we provide in the template. The following list of skills are also helpful in developing your GEAP, however may be determined by your organisational capacity and size around what's possible. But project management, change management, consultation, communication, data collection and analysis, leadership skills, and technical skills will all help in developing and implementing your GEAP.
Lastly we move to part three submitting your GEAP.
Moving on to submission, your gender equality action plan is due to the commissioner by the 1st of May 2026. It is highly recommended that you submit using the GEAP template and you must submit via the reporting platform, noting that supporting documents will not be accepted. If you choose not to use the GEAP template, please ensure that you've included all the required components in your GEAP, and have a table of contents that shows The Commissioner and team exactly where to find them. If you experience unforeseen circumstances that will impact whether you can complete your GEAP on time you can request an extension to submit your GEAP. Should you need this, send a request to The Commissioner as soon as possible before the submission date. For further information on extension requests, you can visit our website Commissioner's extension request page. Reporting platform.
Make sure the right people have access to the reporting platform. To request access for new reporting platform users, there is a nomination form. And please note that only reporting process owners or your head of organization can complete this form. If you have questions about how to use this form, please contact our team at enquiries@genderequalitycommission.vic.gov.au, and we'll give you an email address at the end of this presentation. We will also be developing a short video webinar on using the reporting platform to help you with this.
Some tips for a successful submission.
A few practical strategies can make a huge difference. First, start early so you're not rushing days before the deadline. As we've shown you earlier in that timeline slide the GEAP is an organisational-wide action plan that requires a lot of effort from many people across the organisation and substantial planning. Collaboration and early engagement is equally important. Pull in your people and culture or your human resource team, payroll and data folks, but also get leadership buy-in as early as possible, so everyone understands why this matters. If you have a gender equality working group, you have a group of champions as well to help you with engagement and sharing the why. Allow time for submission and sign off from relevant committees, stakeholders, and of course the final approval and attestation from your head of organisation.
After submitting your GEAP, compliance checking begins.
Compliance checking is a rigorous process, your GEAP will be assessed for compliance under section 10 of the Gender Quality Act. Your GEAP will be assessed against a compliance rubric. This compliance assessment rubric will also be published likely to be quarter 3, 2025 for you to have a look at. Your compliance outcomes will be sent to your reporting process owner, your head of organization, and your board chair, if you have one at the same time. What you can do while you wait for feedback though, is start implementing your GEAP strategies. Don't wait for your compliance outcome. And keep up your gender impact assessments as well. Communicating and publishing is also an important part of this, The Act requires you to publish your GEAP on your website within a reasonable time after submitting it to The Commissioner. Also notify your governing body employees and employee representatives of the publication. The Commissioner expects you as a duty holder to publish your GEAP on your website within three months of receiving a compliance outcome, and publishing your GEAP on your website shows your commitment to gender equality to your staff, and stakeholders, and ensures you're accountable to your employees and the community. Keeping staff informed and engaged is also the groundwork for meaningful change. Sharing and communicating your GEAP supports successful implementation. Regular engagement with your employees through GEAP implementation can keep them invested in achieving its vision, and lastly monitoring and evaluation helps to ensure the governing body and executive team manage risks associated with non-compliance with The Act, and helps you find out which strategies are working and which ones might need some adjustment.
Finally we have developed other webinars just like this for further learning and support. Other on demand webinars that are available to you are, introduction to the gender equality act, conducting an audit, and progress reports. We will also be holding drop-in sessions for each of the obligations. Your community of practice in most industries is a very good resource, and helpful sharing and collaboration space. And also you can contact us for further support enquiries@genderequalitycommission.vic.gov.au.
Finally please keep in touch. You can visit our website, you can follow us on LinkedIn, you can email us at that enquiries inbox that I've already mentioned. And you can subscribe to our newsletter. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we hope you found this overview around gender equality action plans helpful.
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