Hello and welcome. My name is Bryony. Thank you for joining us today. Over this short session, we'll focus on the 2026 progress report template so you know what to do when completing the template and how you can ensure that you comply with the obligations under the Gender Equality Act.
I'd first like to acknowledge that our offices are located on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and I wish to acknowledge them as the traditional owners. I would also like to pay respects to elders past, present and emerging and any Aboriginal elders of other communities who may be watching today.
In this short session, I'll provide a concise overview of the template. Then I'll hand to my colleague Kathryn for a detailed walk through of each section in the template. By the end of the session, you'll walk away with clarity on what is required, a solid grasp of the 2026 changes, and practical tips to complete the template to ensure compliance. Let's begin.
Let's start with why we introduced the new progress reporting template. Unlike the gender equality action plan template, using the progress reporting template is a requirement to meet compliance. If you upload your progress report in any other format, you would be marked as non-compliant and the commissioner will also ask you to resubmit in another format.
So using the template and following the instructions will help you comply with your obligations. In the progress report, there are three key things to report on. The policies, programs, and services that were subject to a gender impact assessment, your organisation's progress in relation to the workplace gender equality indicators, and your organisation's progress in relation to the strategies listed in your GEAP.
So what has changed in the progress report template since 2023? First, the cover page is new. It's mostly recommended, but the CEO attestation is required. It confirms their approval of the report and all the relevant gender impact assessments were done or they can explain if they weren't done, why not? For the gender impact assessment, there's a new section to explain permitted exemptions, actions taken, and no actions are now in separate columns. And importantly, describing how you considered intersectionality is now required. If you didn't capture this previously, you can explain that in your report without impacting your compliance this time. But in your next progress report in 2028, you'll need to report it explicitly.
In the indicators section, the data and narrative are now separated and you're required to discuss the factors influencing your progress. Previously, this was only recommended.
And finally, the GEAP strategies reporting is more streamlined. Instead of line by line updates, you just list the strategies per indicator and note any delays or cancellations in a single place. You can also include reflections on how your GEAP implementation went to improve your next cycle. These changes aim to make reporting clearer and more meaningful while helping you reflect and improve.
So here are some tips when using the template. So firstly, don't change the template. No deleting columns, saving as a PDF, or reordering the structure or restyling in Canva. Keep the structure intact and in order. This template is in word format and is displayed in a way that follows a logic. You can however do some light editing of any funny formatting including changing column widths or removing paragraph spacing and so on. Required versus recommended. The template keeps things simple.
Every item is marked as either required or recommended. Required items are mandated by the General Equality Act. You have flexibility in how you word them, but each must appear in your progress report for your progress report to pass compliance. Recommended items aren't compulsory, but we strongly encourage you to include them. They give richer context and insight.
Red explainer text and hyperlinks to guidance. For each step, there is red explainer text to tell you exactly what you need to do to complete the section. There are also links to the relevant sections in the guidance. Click once and this will take you to deeper explanations in the guidance document. And we strongly encourage you to carefully read the guidance. It has everything you need to know in there, not just to meet compliance, but to really drive change. It's important to emphasise that if you just fill in the template alone without reading the guidance, there is a much greater risk of non-compliance.
And finally cover page and attestation by the head of your organisation. The cover page is new. The head of your organisation, CEO or equivalent, must complete this section to show that they have approved your progress report and confirm that your organisation has completed all the relevant gender impact assessments. Your CEO can use this base to provide further comments for the commissioner to consider when assessing your progress report.
Before I hand over to my colleague Kathryn, we recommend pausing this webinar, visiting the progress report guidance on our website, and downloading the progress report template. With the template open, you'll be able to scroll through each section in real time as Cat takes you through it. Over to you, Kat.
Thank you, Bryony. Hello, everyone. My name is Kat. I will run through now how to use the progress report template. First, we have the cover page. Please fill in the relevant information including your organisation name, total number of employees, response rate to your employee experience survey, any relevant contextual information that may have impacted your organisation's ability to undertake your obligations under the act and the location of your organisation.
When your template is complete, you then need to have your CEO or equivalent sign off on your progress report using the attestation. Step one is reporting on your gender impact assessments that you undertook over the last 2-year period. In this first section, you should indicate whether you have an exemption on reporting your gender impact assessments from the list and then use the box below the permitted reason list to provide further context.
Under the act, you are required to undertake gender impact assessments. They must be done on policies, programs, and services that have a direct and significant impact on the public. Please do not report on internal facing policies, programs, and services, like an internal workforce policy, for instance. If none of the permitted reasons apply to you, select the last box that says none of these apply, and then move on to section 1.2. two.
Next we have is section 1.2 describing policies, programs and services subject to agenda impact assessment. This has both required and recommended elements to complete. The purpose of this section is to identify and give context to your policies, programs and services that had a gender impact assessment. In the first column, you'll see the numbers over there. So you can leave the reference number alone. You'll need it for section 1.3. From there, please fill in the title of the policies, programs, and services.
Again, these must be on external facing policies, programs, and services, not internal ones. Then select the subject from the drop-own in column B. Give a high level summary of the policies, programs, and services in column C. Please include enough detail so that we can understand the context of your policy, program and service. Then in column D, please select new or for review in the status.
And finally, provide a summary of the gendered impacts you found from completing a gender impact assessment on that policy, program or service. While voluntary, completing this section helps you to complete the next section which I will get into in a moment. and it can and it also helps us to understand the connection between the findings of your gender impact assessment and the actions you took. Feel free to also add or delete columns as needed.
We are now at section 1.3 which is describing the actions you took as a result of the gender impact assessment. These are mostly required with one recommended element. In the first column is the reference number. This links to the same reference number from the previous table in 1.2. This is to link the policy and program service between the two tables.
And then in column F, please select yes or no from the drop-own to indicate whether you took any action as a result of the gender impact assessment. Taking action means you changed or developed the program policy or service because some because of something your GIA revealed. In column F, please select yes or no from the drop-own to indicate whether you took any action as a result of the gender impact assessment. Taking action means you changed or developed the policy, program, or service because of something your gender impact assessment revealed.
If you select yes, please describe the actions you took in column G and clearly explain how they relate to either meeting the needs of people of different genders, promoting gender equality, or addressing gender inequality, or all three. You'll need to clearly explain the link between your actions and how they relate to gender equality. If you are unsure how the actions relate to better outcomes for people of different genders, please refer to the gender equality research or evidence to better understand how the actions drive progress towards gender equality. Please only report on completed gender impact assessments.
And then from here you can write NA in column H. If however you selected no in column F, then please write NA in column G and explain why you did not take actions in column H.
Then in column I, please describe how and why intersectionality was considered. This could include consulting with people who experience intersecting forms of inequality or reviewing information from experts in intersectional gender inequality as part of your gender impact assessment.
In column J, please describe any actions taken to address intersectional gender inequalities. Note that if part of your gendered impacts description in column E or actions description in column G include intersectional analysis, you can reference to this. For instance, you could write in column I, First Nations women and women with disability were considered. Please see column E for how they were considered to to demonstrate how intersectional analysis was applied.
Next we have section 2.1 describing progress against the indicators. These are mostly required with one recommended element. This section is organized by the seven workplace gender equality indicators. For the purposes of today, I'll only go through the first indicator as most of what I will explain apply to the other indicators.
So in the progress data column, so that's column L there, you will see a range of what's called critical and supplementary performance measures that come prefilled in the template. You are required to make progress against all seven indicators. These measures relate to those indicators. They are the best type of measure to help you understand whether you have made progress or not on the indicators and represent the minimum information to assess your progress or compliance.
The critical measures are the minimum level of data you should be using and supplementary measures are just a step above that if you have a bit more capacity to do more. You are strongly encouraged to use these prefilled measures and pop the relevant data next to the 2023 and 2025 figures. The data does come from your workplace and gender audit. So this means you already collect the data as part of your audit. So it is as simple as putting those figures in.
If you do not provide data against performance measures, the Commissioner will determine if the alternative data you provide is appropriate and adequate for reporting platform users. We do have a new report that is available on the platform that calculates the performance measures using your organisation's data and more information on this will be released soon. So the purpose of this column is that you demonstrate progress or a lack of against the indicators and it is backed by evidence through your data. You do this by comparing different combinations of your 2023 to your 2025 order data.
Column M is space for you to include any other progress data you wish to include as part of demonstrating progress should you wish. This might include data that reveals forms of intersectional gender inequality in your organisation for instance. In column N, please select yes or no to the question, has progress being made? This is your assessment of whether you have made progress. It should be a realistic reflection of where your organization is on each of the indicators.
In column O, please explain how the data demonstrates progress or lack of progress. We want to hear your justification for whether you made progress or not based on your analysis of your data. This might include talking about other related data points across the other indicators. For instance, we know that gender segregation impacts the gender composition of the organisation and also the gender pay gap. So this column requires you to do a bit of analytical work to join the dots and explain to us how you made progress or did not make progress. Please apply this approach to all of the seven indicators. All seven indicators do have their own set of critical and supplementary performance measures that come prefilled in the template.
Next we have section 2.2 two, describing factors limiting and contributing to progress. This section is required. Again, I've only shown indicator one here, but the following advice do apply to all of the seven indicators. First, we have column P, which is just the number of the indicators, so you can leave that one alone.
And then in column Q, please select none or any number of the factors that apply to help explain if any of the listed factors affected your ability to make progress. You can see the factors listed under the table there. So for instance, you may have had a flooding event in your in your area or substantial organisational change and these factors may have impacted your ability to make progress. In this these cases, you cancel like B for instance or you may even have made genuine attempts and as with any project or change program, sometimes they simply don't work out in the way you had intended which is why it is important to capture these insights so that you can learn from them for the next reporting cycle. In cases like this, you can select G. If you have selected one or more factors, please provide context in column R. If you selected none, please write NA in column R.
In your explanation, please explain how the factors that you identified have had an impact on your progress. Even if you did not make quantitative progress, the factors might show that this lack of progress is reasonable. If you selected multiple factors, please make sure you refer to all of them in your explanation. In column S, please list the relevant GEAP strategies that supported or were designed to support progress against each indicator. You don't need to explain further. You can simply list your strategies. This helps you and us to understand what were the specific things you did that led to the progress of that indicator. This column is required as it also forms part of your reporting on the implementation of your GEAP.
Next, we have section 3.1 explaining incomplete strategies. This is required. You must provide a summary of any strategies from your previous GEAP that weren't completed as intended and why. You do not need to list all your incomplete strategies. You can provide a number or a percentage of strategies that weren't completed, but we're really interested in hearing why they weren't completed. There may be good reasons why you have canceled some strategies. This gives you the opportunity to explain why. It's also important for your own analysis, thinking, and development for the next GEAP.
Next, we have 3.2 and 3.3. These are both recommended sections. For 3.2, describing achievements, challenges, and learnings. This is a space for you to celebrate your wins, reflect on your previous GEAP, and share any learnings. Sharing challenges and learnings is important for your own organisational growth, particularly to inform your next Jeep. But it's also valuable to your sector peers so that they can learn from you as we're all trying to work towards a more gender equal, more safe and equitable Victoria for everyone.
This space also allows you to celebrate some of your biggest wins. So the more we can acknowledge, share and celebrate the wins, the more successful we will be in moving towards achieving this vision. For section 3.3, this is space for you to provide other updates on implementation if there's anything you would like to tell the commissioner and other readers about your GEAP implementation. If you don't have anything to say, you can delete this section or just leave it blank.
Finally, in section 3.4, please describe your resource allocation to implement your strategies. This is a required section. You could consider for example how many staff members were allocated to implementing the strategies. Who implemented the strategies in your GEAP? What role did they perform and at what level? Was financial, technological, physical and or time resourcing adequate? If not, how will your organisation address this in your next GEAP? The other additions or comments section there is just space for you to provide any other commentary or background information should you wish. This might include further detail about your audit data or context about one or more of your gender impact assessments.
That brings us to the end of the template. Um just some further information here. So, please remove page one text of the template and the instructional text which is in red f font throughout the template. Um, as Bryony said earlier, you may do some light document editing. So, any funny spacings or if the column widths are a bit funny that that light sort of editing, you are welcome to do that. Please submit your progress report by 1st of May 2026 and you will need to publish on your website. So you can either do this before or after your compliance outcome. We do recommend you hold off until compliance checking is complete and that you have received feedback in case you need to make any changes. But if you do publish before compliance outcomes, you need to include a disclaimer saying it hasn't been compliance checked yet and may be subject to change.
Finally, some further learning and support. We do have other on demand webinars available on our website. And if you do require other support, we do have a range of drop-in sessions coming up for each of the obligations. We also have communities of practice for your industry. We have more information of that on our website. And lastly, you are very welcome to to to contact us for further support by our email.
Thank you for joining us today and we hope you found this useful.
Updated