WGEA reporting obligations are broader and the public disclosure stakes are higher. VeiraMal helps Australian employers prepare accurate, compliant submissions, here’s what you need to know.
WGEA reporting has moved from a compliance exercise that relatively few people noticed to a public accountability mechanism that employees, investors, customers, and the media pay attention to. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency now publicly discloses individual employer gender pay gaps. Employers with large or unexplained gaps can face media coverage, difficulty attracting talent who check employer profiles before applying, and questions from investors and clients.
For the 2025 reporting period, VeiraMal’s analytics team is already working with clients on data preparation, gap analysis, and narrative development, ensuring that when WGEA publishes employer data, clients are prepared for what will be visible, and are taking meaningful steps to address genuine inequity where it exists.
This guide covers every obligation relevant to the 2024-25 reporting period, what has changed in recent reporting cycles, and how VeiraMal manages the full WGEA reporting process for Australian employers. For VeiraMal’s full analytics capability, see the HR Analytics and Reporting service page.
Who Must Report to WGEA?
WGEA reporting is mandatory for ‘relevant employers’ private sector, non-public sector Australian employers with 100 or more employees at any point during the reporting period (1 April to 31 March). This threshold is assessed on a headcount basis, not full-time equivalent, meaning part-time and casual employees count toward the threshold.
If your headcount fluctuates around the 100-employee mark, VeiraMal advises on the specific assessment rules that determine whether you’re a relevant employer for that reporting year. Incorrectly concluding that you’re not required to report, and then missing the deadline, results in public naming by the WGEA, which is an avoidable reputational risk.
For background on the WGEA reporting framework, VeiraMal’s Tash Talks on What Is WGEA Reporting and WGEA Reporting Made Simple for Australian Employers provide accessible introductions. The WGEA’s employer portal contains the official submission guidance.
The 2024-25 Reporting Period: Key Dates
The 2024-25 WGEA reporting period covers 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025. The employer reporting window opens on 1 April 2025 and runs until a deadline communicated by WGEA for the current cycle. VeiraMal tracks these deadlines for all active WGEA clients and initiates the data collection process well before the submission window opens, typically in January or February.
Waiting until the reporting window opens to start preparing is a high-risk approach. Accurate WGEA reporting requires clean, reconciled payroll data, and data quality issues discovered in April are significantly harder to resolve under time pressure than issues identified in February.
What Employers Must Report: The Full Scope
Workforce Profile
A complete headcount report capturing all employees on the payroll in the final pay period of March. The workforce profile must be broken down by gender, employment type (full-time, part-time, casual), manager versus non-manager status, and occupational category (using the WGEA’s defined categories).
VeiraMal cross-references workforce profile data against payroll system records to confirm accuracy before submission. Discrepancies between the workforce profile and STP records are a risk indicator that can attract WGEA attention.
Remuneration Data and Gender Pay Gap
This is the centrepiece of WGEA reporting and the data that drives the published gender pay gap. Employers must report remuneration information for all employees, base salary and total remuneration, in a way that allows the WGEA to calculate the gender pay gap across the full workforce and broken down by manager level, occupational category, and employment type.
VeiraMal’s analytics team processes this data before it goes into the WGEA portal, running the same calculations the WGEA will run to confirm exactly what gap will be reported. If the calculated gap is larger than expected, VeiraMal analyses the drivers: Is it concentrated in specific occupational categories? Does it reflect a part-time premium skewed by gender? Is there a genuine base pay disparity that needs to be addressed?
Understanding the driver of the gap is essential for two reasons. First, it determines what action is appropriate, a gap driven by occupational segregation requires a different response than a gap driven by base pay inequity. Second, it provides the employer with an accurate narrative for any stakeholder questions about the published data. See VeiraMal’s Tash Talk on Importance of WGEA Reporting for a Business for context on why this narrative preparation matters.
Human Resources Policies and Practices
Employers must report on the availability and uptake of a range of workplace policies and practices relevant to gender equality. This covers: flexible working arrangements (type of arrangements available and uptake by gender), paid parental leave (availability and payment rates, with specific data on primary and secondary carer leave), family and domestic violence support policies and leave, and whether a formal gender equality strategy exists.
VeiraMal reviews policy documentation against what is reported in the WGEA submission to confirm consistency. Reporting policies as available when no documented policy exists, or when the policy exists but is not communicated or accessible to employees, creates both WGEA compliance risk and a broader governance concern.
CEO Remuneration
The gender and total remuneration of the CEO (or equivalent highest-paid employee) must be reported. Specific rules apply where the CEO role is vacant, held on an acting basis, or held by multiple people simultaneously. VeiraMal manages this component carefully, it is a frequent source of submission errors for employers without specialist support.
What Changed in 2023-24 and Why It Still Matters in 2025
Public Disclosure of Individual Employer Gender Pay Gaps
The most significant change in the recent reporting cycle was the WGEA’s decision to publish individual employer gender pay gaps. Previously, WGEA data was reported in aggregate, industry-level data was publicly available but individual employer gaps were not. From the 2022-23 reporting cycle, individual employer gaps have been published and are searchable by employer name.
The practical implication is that any job seeker, journalist, investor, or client can check your organisation’s gender pay gap before making a decision about whether to engage with your business. For employers with gaps that reflect genuine structural inequality, rather than occupational or employment type differences, this creates significant and ongoing reputational exposure.
VeiraMal helps clients move beyond compliance, analysing their gender pay gap data to identify genuine inequity, developing action plans to address it, and building the internal reporting and governance that demonstrates sustained commitment to closing the gap. See VeiraMal’s Tash Talk on Workplace Gender Equality Best Practices for a framework.
Expanded Remuneration Reporting
Recent reporting cycles have also expanded the remuneration data requirements, more granular breakdowns of pay by classification level, increased data on superannuation, and more specific requirements around the CEO remuneration reporting. These expanded requirements increase the data quality and preparation work required before submission.
The Consequences of Non-Compliance
Employers who fail to submit their WGEA report are publicly named on the WGEA website. This naming is ongoing, it remains visible until the employer submits. Beyond the reputational impact, WGEA non-compliance can affect eligibility for Commonwealth Government contracts, as government procurement policies increasingly require evidence of gender equality commitment from major suppliers.
VeiraMal ensures no client misses the WGEA reporting deadline. For clients in VeiraMal’s managed payroll or HR analytics program, WGEA reporting is built into the annual engagement calendar; it’s not an emergency project in April, it’s a structured process that begins in January.
How VeiraMal Manages the Full WGEA Reporting Cycle
VeiraMal’s WGEA reporting engagements are comprehensive. The process begins with a data audit in January or February, identifying any payroll data quality issues that need to be resolved before March reporting data is captured. By March, VeiraMal’s analytics team is ready to extract, clean, and analyse the workforce profile and remuneration data as soon as the reporting period closes.
VeiraMal prepares the complete gender pay gap analysis, prepares the policy documentation review, drafts the WGEA submission, and manages the portal lodgement. A full reporting debrief is provided to senior leadership or the board, covering the key metrics, the gap analysis, and the recommended actions for the following year.
Don’t leave WGEA reporting preparation to the last minute. Contact VeiraMal now to start the 2024-25 reporting process with data you can stand behind.
