Provide your Employer Statement link to WGEA
- A link to your Employer Statement will be made visible on WGEA Data Explorer when your gender pay gap is published. It will be situated next to your gender pay gap.
- Reporting contacts can supply these links via the WGEA Reporting Portal. You must supply a new link every year.
- Private sector employers can upload their link any time from November. However, to ensure your Employer Statement is published on the Data Explorer at the same time as your Gender Pay Gap, you must have uploaded a link by mid-February. WGEA will notify employers of key dates as they approach.
- Commonwealth public sector gender pay gaps will be published in Q2 2026. WGEA will notify employers of key dates as they approach.
Employer Statement Guide
An Employer Statement is an effective tool for employers to update key stakeholders and the public about their progress on gender equality in their workplace each Year. It provides context to their gender pay gap results and information on the actions they are taking to improve gender equality.
The Statement is voluntary. Where an employer supplies a link to their Employer Statement via the WGEA Reporting Portal it is published alongside their gender pay gap on the WGEA Data Explorer.
The information employers place in their Employer Statement can be valuable for key stakeholders including:
boards, governing bodies, and the executive
prospective employees
shareholders and investors
employee organisations, peak bodies, and industry groups
customers and clients
media outlets.
Choosing to write an Employer Statement brings many benefits to employers including:
demonstrates the organisation’s commitment to taking purposeful action on gender equality and to narrowing the gender pay gap
builds key stakeholder’s knowledge of gender and pay equality within a workplace
helps to attract and retain a diverse workforce by adding to the employer’s value proposition
encourages transparency and cross-industry collaboration on industry-wide challenges and opportunities on workplace gender equality.
Download the Employer Statement Guide
When to prepare your Employer Statement
Employers can begin preparing an Employer Statement at any time, but ideally the process starts when an organisation generates its Executive Summary and Industry Benchmark Report.
This will ensure the Employer Statement considers the wider scope of the employer’s results and makes stronger links to their actions for improvement over time.
Sharing the Executive Summary and Industry Benchmark Report with the governing body is part of an employer’s reporting and compliance obligations.
Adding the Employer Statement into this pack, along with the organisation’s Action Plan, fulfils your compliance obligations and fosters leadership understanding, endorsement, and active support.
Key things to include
An effective Employer Statement includes 3 key items.
1. | Progress on the gender pay gap from the previous year |
2. | Relevant insights and actions from their gender pay gap analysis |
3. | The key actions and commitments to progressing gender equality actions, strategies, and targets. This is especially powerful when endorsed and communicated by the governing body/Board and or Executive |
Together, these elements create a holistic view of gender equality in your organisation that will have resonance with employees and stakeholders.
How to develop an effective Employer Statement
The following steps will help guide you through the process of developing your Employer Statement. Further information and resources are on the WGEA Take Action page.
1 Download your WGEA reports
Your WGEA reports are located in the WGEA reporting portal. To access and download your reports follow the below steps:
1. Log in to the WGEA reporting portal
2. Make sure the submission status for your organisation is ‘completed’ with a sub status of ‘No Issues’. If you have data anomalies, these must be fixed before downloading your reports
3. Go to the 'Document Generation' section to create the reports
4. Generate and download your reports.
2 Undertake a gender pay gap Analysis
A gender pay gap analysis is the foundation of an effective Employer Statement because it informs broader action planning processes and key messaging for taking action.
The gender pay gap analysis examines the drivers of gender inequality in a workplace and highlights where actions to improve should be focused.
Undertaking a pay gap analysis has positive impacts across a range of gender equality indicators.
WGEA resources that can help:
Gender Pay Gap Analysis Masterclass: Learn how to analyse workforce data and understand the experiences and outcomes in workplaces that may be contributing to the gender pay gap.
Gender Pay Gap Analysis Guide: Helps employers to plan a gender pay gap analysis.
3 Establish an effective action plan
The transparency of publishing gender pay gaps means it is more important than ever that organisations take effective action on narrowing their gender pay gap.
A gender equality Action Plan sets out the key actions an organisation plans to take, based on the findings of the gender pay gap analysis, in addition to how these actions will be resourced and the outcomes measured.
The Action Plan can be a key component of an employer’s value proposition when it reflects an employer’s commitment to delivering gender equal opportunities and outcomes for everyone.
WGEA resources that can help:
Gender Equality Action Planning Masterclass: Learn to choose, prioritise, and plan gender equality actions to effectively narrow the gender pay gap and contribute to gender equality.
WGEA Action Planning Playbook: Helps employers to develop and implement effective workplace gender equality action plans.
WGEA Action Planning Tool: Helps employers identify actions to improve gender equality in their workplace.
Employee Consultation Guide: Offers employers evidence-informed guidance to enable effective consultation with employees as part of the action-planning process.
4 Establish your outcomes or targets
Selecting targets and measuring progress against them is an integral part of any planning process, including those relating to gender equality. To be the most effective, targets should be specific, measurable and timebound and based on the outcomes and findings from the gender pay gap analysis and Action Plan.
WGEA resources that can help:
Target Setting for Workplace Gender Equality Masterclass: Understand the value of targets and learn how to select the most suitable and effective targets for your organisation. This masterclass is especially useful for Designated Relevant Employers.
5 Draft your Employer Statement
Include the following key components in your Employer Statement:
Change and progress on your gender pay gap from the previous year
Highlighting progress over a sustained period demonstrates a long-term commitment to gender equality.
Elements to include:
statement of commitment to gender equality that aims for long-term progress
actions taken in the last year and their outcomes.
Share relevant insights from your gender pay gap analysis
Accelerating progress on the gender pay gap relies on understanding why and how gender differences have emerged in a workplace. This will assist in the selection of fit-for-purpose actions that will have the most impact on narrowing the gender pay gap.
Elements to include:
key drivers of the gender pay gap or ‘hotspots’
relevant policies or strategies to support narrowing the gender pay gap.
Connect your insights to evidence-informed actions
One of the biggest opportunities of publishing gender pay gaps is the transparency it creates for linking the current circumstances to intentions and a pathway forward.
Elements to include:
aligning actions and inputs with the organisation strategy
highlighting commitment from executive leadership and governance teams. This sends a strong signal to stakeholders on an employer’s commitment to gender equality.
WGEA resources that can help:
Share your proposed outcome measures for the year
Strengthen your evidence-informed Action Plan by including specific gender equality measures and communicate the progress towards achieving these.
Elements to include:
the gender equality measures you are working towards
how you will measure progress.
6 Seek governing body endorsement
Share the Employer Statement with the governing body/Board and authorising executives.
Relevant employers are required to share their WGEA Executive Summary and Industry Benchmark Report with their executive, governing body or Board. We also recommend sharing the Employer Statement with your Executive, governing body or Board.
Key considerations:
The Employer Statement will be a public-facing document. Sharing the Employer Statement with the Executive, governing body or Board along with the Executive Summary and Industry Benchmark Reports will allow adequate time to consider any impacts, material risks, and opportunities the gender pay gap and gender equality action plans may have.
This process will also ensure any gender equality strategies and Action Plans noted in the Employer Statement are viewed and endorsed as part of a cohesive, organisation-wide response to the WGEA data and reports and an employer’s gender equality performance.
7 Provide the link to WGEA
WGEA will publish a link to the Employer Statement alongside employer gender pay gaps on the Data Explorer.
Reporting contacts can supply these links via the WGEA reporting portal. Employers must supply a new link every year.
Refer to the Employer Statements webpage for the most up-to-date information on when you can upload your link and when Employer Statements will be published.
WGEA is here to help
The steps in this guide should help you to feel more confident drafting an Employer Statement, but we understand that some employers need additional support.
WGEA has several resources to help employers to undertake the actions mentioned in this guide. These include: