Use this page from our website to find out more about how your firm can develop and implement strategy or policy around Gender Equality. Included here are some tips you might like to consider and some additional research materials for you to use. Use the navigation buttons at the top of this page.

Developing a Gender Equality Strategy

In a Strategy project sponsored by the the University of Melbourne and the Centre for Workplace Leadership, they state that "An overarching gender equality strategy is important to ensure that discrete initiatives are complementary and working towards the overall goals of promoting gender equality in the workplace and supporting the organisation’s business priorities".

They add that is is further important for the strategy to consider

Context: outline the organisation’s industry setting, overall business strategy, values and principles, tailored business case for investing in gender equality, supporting data and assessment of the current state of the organisation.

Key focus areas: determine the organisations key focus areas (such as leadership, communication pay equity flexible working, capability and culture - a complete list of key focus areas is available in the strategy document -  then select priorities  and outline action for each in relation to objectives, specific responses, enablers, risks and barriers, outcomes and barriers, and measurement of impact.

Timeframe: sequence actions for each objective over the next two to three years and decide on who is responsible for implementing and measuring the ongoing action.

The culmination of the strategy process is to develop a policy, which has been approved by the firm, has ownership and has responsibilities for implementation, measuring and monitoring.

In our annual reporting AusLSA focus on 'Policy' and many of our member firms have already developed an underlying strategy to support their individual policies. For those firms who are yet to develop a policy, a broad range of guidance tools are available from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), including a Gender Equality Strategy Guide and a Gender Equality Diagnostic Tool. These tools enable you to start and/or continue your change process towards greater gender equality in your organisation and help you analyse your performance, pinpointing potential gender equality gaps that may exist.

Our 2020 member results reinforced findings from our previous reports that a very high proportion of AusLSA members are taking positive steps to improve the gender equity in their workplaces. Ninety four percent of our reporting firms have a gender equity policy, which is up from 91% last year and remaining firms are implementing diversity and inclusion policies which address many issues in common with gender equality. This year, seventy-three percent of firms decided to publish their gender equality policies, signifying an increased level of policy commitment and transparency.