Submission and publication

This section provides information on how to submit your organisation's progress report in a consistent and timely way. This will help you and the Commissioner to monitor your organisation's progress over time.

What you need to do

Requirements

The Commission has developed progress report templates, published alongside these guidelines.

In line with the Gender Equality Amendment Regulations 2023, you must use these templates to complete and submit your progress report.

The Commissioner has extended the progress report submission date from 31 October 2023 to 20 February 2024 for all organisations.

You must submit the progress report template and the progress audit template to the Commissioner via the reporting platform. The Commissioner will then assess the compliance of your progress report.

Before publishing your progress report, you must remove any personal or potentially identifying information. This also applies to any additional supporting documents you provide as part of your progress report.

You must publish your progress report on your external website as soon as reasonably practicable after submitting it to the Commissioner. We recommend you also publish the progress report on your organisation’s internal website.

You may wish to wait until the Commissioner has assessed your progress report as compliant before publishing. If you publish your progress report prior to the Commissioner assessing it as compliant, and updates to your progress report are required, you will need to update your published version once deemed compliant.

We suggest you include a disclaimer noting that the progress report has not been checked for compliance by the Commissioner, and it may be subject to changes.

The Commissioner will also publish compliant progress reports on their website.

Recommendations

In addition to the progress report template, you may wish to submit an optional supporting document that provides further background, context, reflections, or key learnings relating to the data provided in your defined entity’s progress report.

For example, you may wish to describe in further detail strategies or measures in your defined entity’s GEAP that are progressing well or better than expected, whether there are any issues hindering your progress, or if there have been any unexpected or surprising outcomes resulting from implementing a strategy or measure or through undertaking a GIA. You may also wish to provide case studies relating to GIAs undertaken during the relevant period.

Supporting documents can be submitted on the reporting platform and published on your website alongside your progress report. They may also be published on the Commissioner’s website where appropriate, and with the agreement of your organisation.

Although optional, the Commissioner recommends that you provide a supporting document as it may:

• Enable you and your employees to better understand why progress was or was not made in relation to certain workplace gender equality indicators or GEAP strategies and measures. This information will assist you to further develop and tailor your GEAP strategies and measures.
• Assist you to determine the need for additional funding or resources to improve progress in future, and to develop the necessary business case to obtain such funding or resources.
• Provide more detail to assist the Commissioner to assess your organisation’s compliance with the requirement to make ‘reasonable and material progress’.