Transcript
23 September 2025
Q&A hosted by Alexa Elliot. Speakers:
• Mary Wooldridge, WGEA CEO
• Elyse Lane, WGEA Evidence & Insights Manager
ELLIOT,Alexa 31:56
Thank you Elyse and Mary for those insights. We now have time for questions. Thank you to everyone who's put questions in the chat. We might start with a question for Mary which is: if your business needs change during the 3 years. Can you change your targets?
WOOLDRIDGE,Mary 32:19
Thanks, Lexie.
And unfortunately, no. The targets will stay in place over the course of the 3 years. That's a requirement under the Act. Business needs substantially changing may be a reasonable excuse that can be used. But that, as I've said, doesn't stop you being non-compliant, it just stops you being named in the process.
So, if you think your business is going to change, if there's going to be an acquisition or a divestment or whatever, you might think about that in the context of the targets that you select now. And the other thing of course, and you'll need to get some sort of independent advice on this, is that because targets are set by ABNs, if you're purchasing a new company and it comes in with its own ABN, it will come with those targets that it's set before. It'll keep the targets that it's already got, rather than inheriting the targets that you've had for separate businesses within your organisational structure.
ELLIOT,Alexa 33:36
Thank you, Mary, our next one is for Elyse. The question is: we are in a very women dominated industry and feel like our options for addressing gender imbalance are limited. What can we do?
LANE,Elyse 33:54
Yeah, look, this is something that we get a lot- both from women-dominated and men-dominated industries and employers. It is a tricky one. We understand that there are unique challenges, so I'm going to speak to women-dominated industry employers for this because that's what this question was about.
There is always action that you can take. I speak to a lot of employers who are in exactly the same boat. It's not just about getting more women into leadership, that's not what target setting is about, we're talking about gender balance. You'll notice in the menu there are lots of targets that refer to “under-represented” gender. So, if you are a women-concentrated organisation, you may be setting targets for men's representation at certain levels. In saying that, if you've got a gender pay gap and you're a women-concentrated employer, we don't want to just see men going into management. We may be looking at more granular levels of the organisation as well.
How can you do this?
What are some of the ways that you can do this?
First, I would advise employers to have a look at their recruitment processes. Is it that the jobs that you're advertising just aren't attracting men applicants? And if so, why is that?
There are things that you can do.
You can look at the language in your job advertisements, for example. Are they very gender coded? That's some terminology that we use. For example, are they going to appeal more to women? Is there something in the language that might be encouraging less men to apply for the job. And, if so, then we've seen some great examples of where small tweaks to language and job advertisements can make a real difference.
Other things to think about are what are some of the unique benefits that your organisation might offer? For example, we know a lot of women-concentrated employers have great flexibility options or they have more part-time roles. That's not just something that women want – we know that men also want access to flexibility and more part-time work. That might be something that you can use as an attraction lever to attract more men into your organisation. I think there are things that you can do. I think there is a lot of literature out there about attracting women into men-concentrated industries and employers, but there is still a lot you can do if you're trying to attract men.
ELLIOT,Alexa 36:30
Thanks, Elyse. Our next question is for Mary which is: our organisation has met most of the targets on the menu. Can we choose additional targets that are not on the menu? If so, how do you recommend choosing targets?
WOOLDRIDGE,Mary 36:46
Unfortunately, the answer is no. The targets must be selected from the menu.
As I said just at the start, it's because they have to be connected with the reporting that you already do to WGEA and secondly because they're evidence-based, all of the [targets] that that we've got [on the Menu].
There are a number of comments in the chat of people who have put a lot of the action targets into place. They've got comprehensive policies and strategies. So, in that instance, then it would be reverting to selecting 2 or even 3 numeric targets in terms of progress. Don't forget - this can be different manager categories or different occupations. There is some more detail that sits under some of those numeric targets. So, if you've got a comprehensive suite of policies in place, you're very well placed then to make sure they're being implemented effectively and that it is translating to positive progress in your workplace in relation to composition and gender pay gaps.
ELLIOT,Alexa 37:53
Thanks, Mary. Our next question is for Elyse, which is: where can I find more information on setting numeric targets specifically, i.e., how do we project whether reducing our gender pay gap by X percent is doable?
LANE,Elyse 38:10
That is a great question and one that I think a lot of people are asking at the moment.
My answer is always that we want to go back to the data. So, the best thing to do for figuring out what your numeric targets are, is going to be to undertake that comprehensive gender pay gap analysis process and, wherever possible, over time. What we want to look at is the trend over time and that's going to give you a really good indication of what's going to be possible and you know what's going to be that stretch if you're really taking concerted action to drive progress on gender equality. So, return to your own data, that's going to be your first port of call.
As I mentioned in the presentation, there are other ways to benchmark. The Data Explorer is a really great resource. Go on, have a look at the industry averages, look at your peers, how have they been performing? Have they been reducing their gender pay gap over time? If so, by what increments? But I think we really want to benchmark against ourselves here and I really would stress that with the numeric targets, it's all going to be relative. For example, I spoke to an employer yesterday who had been steadily reducing their gender pay gap over time, and they've got a really robust action plan in place. For them, they have a smaller gender pay gap, so, they might be setting a reduction target that is going to be much smaller than an organisation with a really, really large gender pay gap. So, it's all going to be relative. By doing your homework, looking at the trends over time, figuring out what is going to be realistic based on what's happened before, that's going to be your best bet for setting a realistic numeric target.
ELLIOT,Alexa 40:02
Thanks, Elyse. Our next question - we have a few people seeking clarity on not selecting targets you already have - Mary: can you please explain whether this just relates to action targets, or both action and numeric targets?
WOOLDRIDGE,Mary 40:18
Everything stems from your baseline. So, if you've told us that you have a set of policies in place that are quite comprehensive, you can't then select that target to do the things that are already in place. The reference to that is about action targets - entitlements that employees already have, policies that are already in place - can't be selected again in terms of making progress.
If you have internal targets about women in senior management, reducing your gender pay gap, improving your balance in gender in relation to some professional or sales workers or different occupations, you can select those targets in terms of this process because they're internal things that you've been working on. We would actually encourage you to also think about selecting them as your numeric targets as long as they're on the menu in terms of the WGEA process as well, because that can reinforce what you're already doing internally and help you make progress in terms of the outcomes.
Doing something different to what you're already doing relates to policies and entitlements that are already in place in relation to action targets. Go for your life with numeric targets and reinforce your internal ones externally through this process as well.
ELLIOT,Alexa 41:55
Thank you, Mary. Our next question is for you, Elyse. The question is: all of our employees are paid under modern award arrangements. Therefore, regardless of gender, they're paid the same. Would that group of employees have to be included and have targets?
LANE,Elyse 42:13
This is a really common question and I think in asking this question, we need to be very clear about what we're talking about when we're talking about the gender pay gap. It is not the same as equal pay, which is where people are paid the same for work of equal or comparable value. In having an award, if your employees are being paid the same that is in accordance with the law, and, at that level, we might not see a gender pay gap. What we're talking about when we talk about the gender pay gap, is driven often by composition and other factors, but composition is probably the major one. If you think about your organisation and where people sit in your organisation it can be driven by, for example, if you have an over-representation of men in those senior management roles which tend to be more highly remunerated. If you have an over-representation of women at those very bottom levels of the structure, that can also be driving the gender pay gap.
Even if you have awards in place and your staff aren't on those individual arrangements, it doesn't mean that you're not going to have a gender pay gap. Most likely, what you're going to have to do is have a look at the composition of your organisation and then look at actions that you can take to address those composition issues. And what we see across the board, generally speaking, is, you know, the major factors are that men tend to be more represented in those higher paid roles in management and really technical roles. That's across the board in men and women-dominated industries as well.
ELLIOT,Alexa 43:55
Thanks, Elyse. Our next question is for Mary, which is: if we have fewer than 500 employees currently but are projected to have more than 500 employees by May 2027, do we select targets then and therefore don't have to select them in 2026?
WOOLDRIDGE,Mary 44:14
That's right. We would always encourage the use of setting targets as a great part of that action triangle that Elyse took everyone through. Everyone, hopefully, to make progress on gender equality is doing the gender pay gap analysis, doing the action planning, selecting targets and working towards meeting them.
In terms of this requirement. The year that you reach 500 or more employees in your WGEA reporting is your baseline year. If you don't currently have 500 but next year when you report for the 2025-26 period, you do, that will become your baseline year and you'll then select targets the following year. That's how it rolls through. The first year you have 500 or more is your baseline and you go from there.
And then on the other side, if you drop below 400 for 6 months or more, that is the point at which you will no longer be a designated relevant employer. And, let's say you were [a designated relevant employer], you had your baseline, you selected your targets the next year, the following year you had a reduction in your in your workforce [to bring it below] less than 400 for a 6-month period, the targets then just extinguish. There's no ongoing requirement in relation to them.
I saw there was a question as well about ‘what if we do an acquisition and the number in an ABN falls below 400 for more than 6 months?’. That would be another example of where the targets are extinguished. There is no requirement about them. It would only return once you had 500 or more, in which case that would be your baseline and you would start the cycle again.
ELLIOT,Alexa 46:03
Thank you, Mary. Our next question is for Elyse, which is: for employers that are existing Workplace Gender Equality citation holders and applying for citation again, there appears to be a lot of overlap, particularly relating to selection of hotspot manager and non-manager areas. If we select a hotspot area as part of the citation requirements to focus on for the next 3 years, can they overlap with the targets we select?
WOOLDRIDGE,Mary 46:32
I might jump in Elyse and answer this one. So, absolutely if there are targets selected. The employer Workplace Gender Equality citation is completely separate to this process and that [citation holder process] requires some target setting. Yes, you can use the same targets across the 2.
I do encourage everyone on the call to have a look at the citation because it's quite a comprehensive framework for really doing great work and leading practice on gender equality. One thing for citation holders or people who are aspiring to apply, there is more flexibility. Those hotspots don't have to be consistent with the categories that we use for WGEA reporting. There's a slight nuance in terms of that, but, groups that you select within your citation hotspots will be a subset of a group that you could select for your target setting.
ELLIOT,Alexa 47:31
Thanks Mary. We have another one for Elyse, which was: I work at a boy’s school. Once they graduate, they tend to return to the school to work as casual sports staff. The same occurs at the girl’s school with their coaches. This materially impacts our results. How do we address this?
LANE,Elyse 47:55
I think this speaks to the question that was asked before about women-dominated industry and employers. I think this actually illustrates that it starts really young. There are norms playing into this and we often do what we know and what we see role modelled.
If you're a boy’s school, you might be in a really good position to set some gender composition targets for women in some of these roles and getting those women in as those very visible role models. First, attracting them to the organisation, perhaps by figuring out what the benefits are of being in this organisation. And then, making sure they being role models for those boys in that school and vice versa for a girl’s school, having boys in that school role modeling that these are jobs that can be done by men or women. I think that's very powerful in terms of getting them through the door.
The first challenge is attraction, but then we have a responsibility as well to make sure that our staff are feeling very safe, that they want to stay and retaining them as well. So, the work is not done when you set a gender composition target. It's not even done when you achieve that gender composition target. You have to then make sure that you are retaining that staff as well.
One very clever way that I've heard about getting information - I was talking to an employer recently who are conducting ‘stay’ interviews. They're speaking to their women who are in roles that there are fewer women in, and they're directly asking them, they're conducting focus groups. Why were you attracted to this role? Why have you stayed in this role? Because they want that intelligence so that they can use it to attract more women and that can make sure that the women that they do attract stay with the organisation.
So, get them in there. Start by setting targets. Look at how you attract people into the role and then really focus on keeping them as well. That would be my answer.
ELLIOT,Alexa 50:05
Thank you, Elyse. This next one is for Mary, which is: can we select targets as a corporate group if it covers all of the company's ABNs?
WOOLDRIDGE,Mary 50:16
No, there are no corporate group selection of targets.
That was a conscious decision because corporate groups are often made-up of disparate companies, sometimes doing similar things, but many times not. It doesn't make sense necessarily to set one target for an entire corporate group when they are quite different.
It is worth though, just touching on submission groups. Some employers in corporate groups do report in as one [submission group], rather than in separate submissions to WGEA. For a submission group, it is only the ABNs within the submission group that will be required to select targets. Those targets could be different for each of those ABNs or they could be the same, if it makes sense.
But, for action targets if - given you can only report as a submission group- if your policies and strategies and your answers across the questionnaire are the same or very similar across all the companies for that submission group, if you want to continue to stay in a submission group you will need to select action targets that are the same so that that will continue to be consistent across all the employers in the submission group. I hope that's been clear.
There is more detail on our FAQ on the on targets site [in WGEA’s Targets Hub], but just think for submission groups, the individual ABNs who have 500 or more [employees], think about whether the action targets are going to be the same so you can continue to report as a submission group. If they're not the same, it'll mean that for any ABN that's different in the future, it'll need to be reported separately.
ELLIOT,Alexa 52:19
Thank you, Mary. This next one is for Elyse, which is: it takes time to conduct a causal analysis to ensure we're developing the right targets and actions that will make a difference to our gender pay gap. Do you have resources to support the causal analysis that then align to the targets, or do you recommend we select the ones that seem to mostly match from our current data analysis.
LANE,Elyse 52:45
Proving causal relationships between what you see in the data and what's actually happening, it does take time. That's a proper research project. Anyone who's doing that - fantastic, I would love to hear about what you're doing.
What we would recommend is doing that comprehensive gender pay gap analysis process which is tracking the data over time. What you do see are broader trends and, yes, it's correlation. For example, you might do your gender pay gap analysis and see that you have a disproportionate number of women that are leaving the organisation. Can we say that there's a causal relationship between that high number of women leaving the organisation and gender inequality in the organisation? No, not from just looking at the data. But what we can see is that's what we call a ‘hot spot’. That is something that's a unique trend that indicates there might be something going on underneath the surface that can be addressed. We also do know it gives us a good idea, that there are lots of levers that we can use to retain women within the organisation which is going to be good for everyone.
Most of the targets in the menu and the actions that you can take, they're not going to harm the organisation at all. We can get a pretty clear indication - looking at that data, looking at the trends over time - without doing, for example, a decomposition analysis and going into the nitty gritty of the data, that's not the expectation here.
So, use our resources. We've got the Masterclasses, we've got the guides. If you're at that point where you're really across the data, you've got an action plan in place, set up an advisory session, we can have a chat. We've got a number of gender equality experts in the organisation and I do advisory sessions as well. We can look through the data with you and we can talk about your options.
ELLIOT,Alexa 54:46
Thanks, Elyse. Our next question is for Mary, which is: do we select targets in the [Employer] Portal or is it via e-mail or other means? When will this happen in 2026?
WOOLDRIDGE,Mary 54:57
Absolutely, it will be in the Portal. It will be part of your gender equality reporting next year.
That'll open 1 April and close at the end of May. As I think everyone knows, if you want an extension, you need to ask for that before the end of May.
As part of that [gender equality reporting], there will be a specific section and - we're just designing and doing the tech requirements at the moment - a specific section only for employers of 500 or more employees to select targets for each [designated relevant employer] ABN. That'll happen as part of your normal process, there won't be anything separate or different. You will get the results articulated in your Executive Summary as you've done previously for other results and we'll go from there. So that's the cycle.
ELLIOT,Alexa 56:00
Thank you. It seems that we only have about 5 minutes left. We have time for one final question. Let's go with a question for Elyse, which is: what does consultation look like in practice and how do we plan to manage the risk that managers or leaders are resistant or don't want to buy in on targets?
LANE,Elyse 56:25
Consultation in-practice can look like a number of different things. I spoke to this a little bit in the presentation and would advocate that in terms of this target selection process, it's really advisable that you start consultation early and you really would begin with engaging your key stakeholders. Those are your leaders, in the first instance- HR and Diversity & Inclusion. Get them on-board, get their buy in. I've never met a leader of an organisation that doesn't love data, so I would really emphasise doing your homework. Going there having done the data analysis, having looked at our resources and maybe mapped the actions that you would propose to your leaders that your organisation could take. Bringing them there and having the conversation once you've done that groundwork.
One thing I would say is that it can be very tempting as a leader - if you're very passionate about gender equality and it's very well-intentioned- to set a really ambitious target. For example a really ambitious gender pay gap reduction target. That's where having done your homework is going to really help you because you can come with the data and you can say we are absolutely committed and we really want to make this happen, but we might not be able to do that in 3 years. We want to think longer term. Say they wanted to reduce the gender pay gap by 10 percentage points. Let's look at 5 percentage points in 3 years and then maybe we'll get to that 10 percentage point reduction in a second cycle. It's going to completely be determined by the employer and their context.
Do your homework, go prepared, engage those key stakeholders, then cascade that throughout the organisation. Making sure that line managers are included because they're the ones who are really going to drive that progress. They're the ones that are going to embed the processes and the business practices that we need to see that traction against your targets.
Engage often. It can take many different shapes and forms - focus groups, interviews, lunchtime sessions where you're speaking about targets. Just make sure it's on the radar for everyone so that there are no surprises and that everyone is educated on what they are. The goal of this is to make progress towards gender equal workplaces which are good for everyone.
So, often and frequent [consultation with stakeholders], starting at the top and then cascading down.
ELLIOT,Alexa 58:59
Thanks, Elyse. That's all the questions we have time for. Thank you to everyone who posed questions today.
We'll be reviewing the ones that we didn't get to, and we'll include any key themes that come out of them in our Targets FAQ in the Targets hub on our website. Make sure to keep an eye out for that.