How to turn Gender Equity reporting insights into leadership capability

Workplace gender equality reporting is making a real difference and 90% of private sector employers now have a gender equity strategy or policy (Gallagher, 2025). Organisations have collected data over time, and they are using it to strengthen decisions, improve systems, and drive attraction and retention.

We now have the opportunity to translate insights into tangible leadership capability.

Find out how equitable leadership looks in action

Turning gender equity insights into everyday actions

In the 2025–26 reporting period, we will be moving from insight to structured action. Employers with 500 or more employees will be required to select three gender equality targets under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and report progress against those targets over a three-year cycle (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012; HWL Ebsworth Lawyers, 2024).

WGEA reporting provides valuable insight into workforce composition, pay equity, flexible work uptake, and workplace culture (WGEA, 2024). Gender equality targets create the structure to turn those insights into meaningful action.

Every day, leaders influence these outcomes through decisions they make about recruitment, remuneration, development opportunities, and team culture.

When leaders recognise this influence, improving gender equality stops being an abstract organisational goal and becomes part of everyday leadership practice.

Three questions to consider

As the reporting window approaches, many organisations are reflecting on how they can use their WGEA insights more effectively.

Three questions can help guide that conversation.

1. Do leaders at every level understand how their decisions influence gender equity outcomes?

   
   

2. Are gender equality targets connected to leadership behaviours and everyday management practices?

   
   

3. Does your organisation have a clear way to support leaders in building these capabilities?

When leaders have clarity and capability, they are better equipped to make decisions that strengthen organisational performance.

Building leadership capability

One of the most effective ways organisations support gender equity is by defining clear leadership expectations.

This helps leaders understand how their decisions influence workforce composition, pay equity, flexible work, employee consultation, and respectful workplace culture.

Over time, these everyday leadership actions have the power to create workplaces that are more inclusive, more equitable, and better positioned to attract and retain talented people.

The Australian Gender Equity Leadership Capability Framework, developed by Capability Alliance and recognised with a LearnX Diamond Award, was created to support this work.

The framework aligns with the six WGEA Gender Equality Indicators (GEIs) (WGEA, 2023) and provides practical leadership behaviours across four leadership levels, from emerging leaders through to executives.

Importantly, the framework includes two additional capability domains that focus on Gender Equity Targets and Gender Equality Change Leadership.

These capability domains help organisations to translate gender equality commitments into measurable goals and sustained organisational improvement.

Leaders are supported to set and monitor equity targets, share accountability for progress, and embed gender equity into organisational strategy and decision making.

This broader leadership lens is particularly valuable as organisations prepare for new target setting requirements under the Workplace Gender Equality Act (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012).

Strengthening your workplace

Organisations now have the opportunity to combine meaningful data gathered for reporting and to translate this into leadership capability development.

1. Data provides insight

2. Leaders take informed action

3. Organisations track progress and build stronger, more inclusive workplaces over time.
   

If you are exploring practical ways to translate WGEA insights into leadership action, you can learn more about the Australian Gender Equity Leadership Capability Framework on the Capability Alliance resources page.

References

Commonwealth of Australia. (2012). Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth). Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (current compilation)

Gallagher, K. (2025, August 26). Workplace gender equality improving, but leadership representation and pay gaps remain. Australian Government. https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/gallagher/2025/workplace-gender-equality-improving-leadership-representation-and-pay-gaps-remain

HWL Ebsworth Lawyers. (2024). New workplace gender equality targets: What employers need to know. https://hwlebsworth.com.au/new-workplace-gender-equality-targets-what-employers-need-to-know/

Workplace Gender Equality Agency. (2023). Gender equality indicators. Australian Government. https://www.wgea.gov.au/pay-and-gender/6-gender-equality-indicators

Workplace Gender Equality Agency. (2024). Australia’s gender equality scorecard. Australian Government. https://www.wgea.gov.au/publications/australias-gender-equality-scorecard

Workplace Gender Equality Agency. (2024). Data and statistics. Australian Government. https://www.wgea.gov.au/data-statistics