By Brihony Tulloch

If you’re a non-public sector employer with 100 or more employees, or a registered higher education provider and employer, you are required to submit gender equality reports to the government.

Every year you must provide details to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) about gender equality in your workforce. Reporting involves submitting an online workplace profile and questionnaire.

It might seem like a time-consuming – if not intimidating – process, but it’s not if you follow these 6 steps:

Step 1: Determine how you will complete your workplace profile

A workplace profile needs to show the split of males and females across different jobs and types of employment. It will also show the extent to which there is equality in a workplace between what men and women are paid.

When creating a workplace profile, you can choose to provide:

• unit level data, i.e. data for each employee; or
• aggregated data, i.e. total numbers in two tables; one for managers and one for non-managers.

Step 2: Collect the data for your workplace profile

Download the template worksheets from the WGEA website. You can find the information here.

Use these templates internally to collect and record your data so it is ready to add to the worksheet you will lodge in Step 4.

Step 3: Collect the data for your reporting questionnaire

Download the sample workplace profile and reporting questionnaire from the WGEA website, here.

Step 4: Complete and upload your workplace profile data

Populate your workplace profile with the required information, including the unit level or aggregated date.

You can also include data about subsidiaries in your profile if the subsidiary is in the same industry classification as your business. However, if a subsidiary is in a different industry, that employer will need to submit its own report or have another related employer in that industry submit it.

Step 5: Complete and upload your reporting questionnaire

Login to the WGEA online portal here to access the reporting questionnaire (you’ll need to create an AUSkey at the website).

As with the workplace profile, you can only include data about subsidiaries if the subsidiary is in the same industry classification as your business. Your CEO must sign the report before lodgement.

Step 6: Inform employees and shareholders

As soon as reasonably practicable after lodging the report, inform employees and shareholders:

• that the report has been lodged with WGEA; and
• how they can access the report.