Appendix

Privacy and confidentiality

It is important that you maintain the privacy and confidentiality of your employees throughout the audit process.

The Commission's responsibilities

We are required to comply with the information privacy principles(opens in a new window) (IPPs) in the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014(opens in a new window) (Vic) (PDP Act). The IPPs regulate the way personal information is handled, from collection to use and disclosure, security, accessibility and disposal.

We are also required to comply with the Health Records Act 2001(opens in a new window) (Vic) (HR Act) when we collect and handle health information. When dealing with a systemic gender equality dispute under the Act, the Commission is also required to comply with the secrecy provisions at clause 46–46A of the Act.

We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to:

undertake our functions under the Act
help to resolve gender inequality disputes that arise under the Act
communicate updates to duty holders and the public
perform research and data analysis to achieve our functions under the Act
promote ourselves and our functions, and
obtain products and services for our organisation.

We may also collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for other purposes explained at the time of collection or for purposes:

which are required or authorised by or under law or
for which you have provided your consent.

Information provided through audit results will be de-identified (employees’ names and personal identifiers such as employee numbers are not included). However, depending on the size of the duty holder’s organisation, it may still be possible for people with access to this information to ascertain an individual’s identity based on all the information that is collected. If this is the case, this means we may collect sensitive information and personal information about employees.

We will remove any personal information from audit results and GEAPs before they are further distributed or published, in accordance with the Act.

For further information on our privacy policy including why and how we collect information, who we may share personal information with, data quality and security, and other matters, please view the privacy policy(opens in a new window) on our website.

Your organisation's responsibilities

Your organisation is responsible for your own compliance with relevant privacy obligations, including under the PDP Act and HR Act, which requires you to collect, use, and disclose personal and health information in accordance with the IPPs and Health Privacy Principles (HPPs).

You should seek and refer to your own organisation’s guidance around privacy, confidentiality, and data protection to ensure that you maintain the privacy and confidentiality of your workforce and that you are compliant with relevant laws and regulations.

Visit the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner(opens in a new window)’ (OVIC) website for further privacy considerations for your organisation to comply with your obligations under the Act.

Other Victorian and Commonwealth laws

When conducting an audit, your organisation must have regard to your legal obligations under relevant Commonwealth and state legislation and industrial instruments, including but not limited to:

the Fair Work Act 2009(opens in a new window) (Cth) and other Commonwealth workplace relations legislation
the Equal Opportunity Act 2010(opens in a new window) (Vic) and the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006(opens in a new window) (Vic)
the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth)(opens in a new window) and the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012(opens in a new window) (Cth)
Enterprise Agreements, workplace determinations and modern awards.

Glossary of terms

Annualisation (annualising pay)

Annualisation refers to converting pay values that are paid pro rata (that is, a portion of) to a full year value for employees who did not work for the entire reporting year and reporting their base salary and total remuneration as though they had worked for the full year.

Audit reporting period

The audit reporting period is the last 12 months of the relevant period.

For all duty holders except universities, the current audit reporting period is 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025.

For universities, the current audit reporting period is 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, to align with Workplace Gender Equality Agency reporting periods.

Figure 1a: Reporting periods within the relevant period – duty holders (except universities)

Download 'Figure 1a: Reporting periods within the relevant period – duty holders (except universities)'

Figure 1b: Reporting periods within the relevant period – universities

Download 'Figure 1b: Reporting periods within the relevant period – universities'

Defined entity

The Act applies to certain organisations that have 50 or more employees, including:

public service bodies
public entities
special bodies
local councils
universities
Court Services Victoria
Office of Public Prosecutions (s5(1)).

A full list of duty holders (defined entities) is available on our website(opens in a new window). Throughout this guidance, defined entities are referred to as ‘duty holders’ and ‘organisations’.

Full-time equivalent pay

Full-time equivalent pay refers to reporting remuneration figures as though all employees worked full-time. This means converting any pro rata elements of remuneration such as salary and superannuation to their full-time equivalent value and reporting base salary, total remuneration and weekly pay for part-time and casual employees as though they worked full-time. For most part-time employees, this conversion can be done by dividing their pro rata pay elements by their FTE.

For example, for an employee who works 0.8 FTE, and has a pro rata base salary of $80,000:

full-time equivalent base salary = $80,000 divided by 0.8 = $100,000

Gender-disaggregated data

Gender-disaggregated data is data that is separated for people of different genders.

Your audit must be based on gender-disaggregated data, as this data is critical to assess the progress of gender equality in relation to each of the workplace gender equality indicators.

Gender equality action plan (GEAP)

A GEAP(opens in a new window) is a key requirement under the Act which includes strategies and measures that promote gender equality in the workplace of a defined entity, based on the results of a workplace gender audit.

Gender pay gap

The gender pay gap is the difference between women’s earnings or people of self-described gender’s earnings and men’s earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings.

The formula for the gender pay gap is expressed as follows:

([pay received by men minus pay received by women] divided by [pay received by men]) multiplied by 100%
([pay received by men minus pay received by people of self-described gender] divided by [pay received by men]) multiplied by 100%

A gender pay gap that is positive (greater than 0%) means that men were paid more than women or people of self-described gender. A gender pay gap that is negative (less than 0%) means that women or people of self-described gender were paid more than men.

The Commission’s reporting platform’s indicator reports will use these formulas to calculate your organisation’s gender pay gaps automatically from your employee dataset.

The reporting platform will calculate the gender pay gaps based on both mean (average) and median base salary and total remuneration.

Intersectional data

Intersectional data (in this context) is data that is separated by gender as well as attributes other than gender, such as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander identity, age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Looking at data in this way is important. It helps us to understand how someone’s experience of gender inequality might be worsened by the discrimination or disadvantage they may experience based on other attributes.

This concept, referred to in this guide as intersectional gender inequality, recognises that the experiences of an employee who is, for example, an Aboriginal woman, may differ from a non-Aboriginal woman or a woman with disability. Similarly, the experiences of an Aboriginal woman with disability, may differ from a non-Aboriginal woman without disability.

If available, it is recommended that you include intersectional data in relation to the workplace gender equality indicators.

Collecting and analysing this information in your audit will help you with preparing a gender equality action plan and progress report that considers the different systemic barriers that may exist in your organisation.

In collecting, analysing and reporting this data, your organisation will need to be sensitive to employee safety, privacy considerations and allow employees the discretion to self-identify attributes. To learn more about intersectional gender inequality and intersectionality, please refer to the ‘Applying an intersectional approach’ section on our leading practice resources webpage.

We recommend you also refer to our Intersectionality at Work report, which provides insights and analysis of intersectional data collected by duty holders as part of the 2021 workplace gender audit.

Mean

The mean, or average, of a set of values is found by adding all the values and dividing by the total number of values in the set.

Mean remuneration is commonly used in gender pay analysis. It can be skewed by one or a few individuals who have very high or very low salaries, especially for small groups.

Median

The median of a set of values is the middle value when the set is ordered from least to greatest. Half of the set of values are below the median, and half are above the median.

Median remuneration is not used in gender pay analysis as often as mean remuneration, but it can be useful when there are extremely low or high salaries in your dataset.

Relevant period

Relevant period means 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2025 (or 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 for universities).

Different parts of a progress report will relate to different reporting periods that fall within the relevant period. The audit reporting period is the last 12 months of the relevant period.

For all defined entities except universities, the current audit reporting period is 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025.