This report proposes ten recommendations to accelerate progress on gender equality in workplaces and streamline reporting for employers to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).

Key recommendations:

• Recommendation 1: make it easier for employers to report to WGEA and improve WGEA’s data collection by enabling WGEA to use data employers have already provided to government, and investing in a way to assist employers to extract other data from their own employer systems using a digital solution. It is proposed that a new Gender Data Steering Group led by senior officials will oversee research and stakeholder consultation to drive this work.
• Recommendation 2: publish organisation gender pay gaps at an employer level – not just at an industry level as currently happens – to accelerate action to close them.
• Recommendation 3: bridge the ‘action gap’ with new gender equality standards that set targets by requiring large employers (500 or more employees) to commit to, achieve, and report to WGEA on measurable genuine targets to improve gender equality in their workplaces.
• Recommendation 4: reduce the regulatory burden for employers by replacing and refining particular ‘pain point’ questions in the WGEA reporting components including removing the ‘reporting levels to CEO’ question.