WGEA delivers a digital, end-to-end reporting platform on the cloud.

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Government plays a crucial role in helping to create a more inclusive society where everyone has a fair chance to succeed. Promoting and improving workplace gender equality benefits not only individuals, but also organisations and society by:

Creating an environment where all individuals can feel empowered to contribute their best, regardless of their gender
Driving innovation and productivity by bringing together individuals with different perspectives, skills and experiences
Addressing the gender pay gap and ensuring that everyone receives equal compensation for equal work, helping to drive financial stability for employees and their families

Australia's Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) is a statutory agency responsible for promoting and improving gender equality in Australian workplaces. "WGEA's mission is to improve the quality of working lives of Australians, enabling and promoting fairness for all," said Steven Douek, Executive Manager of Reporting and Technology at WGEA. "We are privileged to be the custodians of data on a significant number of working Australians and to use that data for meaningful change. This responsibility is not taken lightly."

Since its founding in 1986, WGEA has been a data-driven agent for change, collecting world-leading information on workplace gender equality indicators from employers across Australia. Through data analysis, education, recognition and advocacy, WGEA works closely with employers, industry groups, and other stakeholders to drive positive change for Australians.

And as their scope evolved, the WGEA team understood that their ability to fuel data-driven insights would be even more important to deliver on their mission.

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As a relevant Australian employer (with 100 or more employees), we proudly report to WGEA on our gender employment metrics.

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A change in scope means government agencies must be able to adapt.

The Workplace Gender Equality Act defines WGEA's remit and responsibilities, including what data WGEA needs to collect and from which employers. And with the most recent passing of the Act, this now includes the federal public sector. That meant adjusting the data collection process and finding a way to leverage government data already held in different departments to avoid duplicate requests.

Data field matching between public and private sectors, as well as gaps between mandatory and voluntary data provided, meant that the team couldn’t just apply templates and compare data sets across regions or industries. Alignment of new data sources and the difference between Public and Private sector operations makes it challenging to provide reporting entities with insights and information they could use to further their own workplace initiatives in a scalable and timely manner.

"Our job is not just collecting the data - we also need visibility over where it's coming from to ensure entities are complying with the Act. And we need to be able to turn that data into information that can be used meaningfully," explained Arthur Tonkin, Reporting Programs Coordinator at WGEA. In other words: a larger remit means more than an increase in volume. It means an increase in tracking that data back to its source, an increase in contextual understanding and nuance, and so on.

"We're a small agency with a big mission. We need something with security at its core that provides agility and scalability for our seasonal reporting cycles. When selecting our platform WGEA needed a system that was reliable but also cost effective. We needed something that gave us confidence in our data quality and the accuracy of our reporting. And we needed to keep the customer at the heart of it," said Douek.

Government agencies must make sense of increasing amounts of data.

Government agencies today are dealing with unprecedented volumes of secured data, and therefore the challenges that come with managing it.

The result: Agencies must find a balance between scale, security, agility, and visibility. The WGEA team found this balance and became a reporting platform best practice – and then shared the key takeaways that make a great starting point for your next digital transformation to-do list.

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WGEA uses the cloud to transform mandatory reporting and data management end-to-end.

WGEA launched an end-to-end reporting platform on the Salesforce Customer 360 for Government, built on the AWS Hyperforce infrastructure. It gives the team a set of digital tools to:

Support a secure one-stop reporting portal with self-service functionality for entities sharing their yearly data as mandated
Facilitate on-demand report generation where reporting entities can download several reports, like individual company data or whole industry benchmarking reports
Provide a detailed knowledge base to assist reporting entities with service desk capabilities for additional support
Enable real time data analysis for customer data quality feedback and automated analysis for the WGEA team

“It’s the brain of the organisation, and,at the centre of all our operations," said Felicity Leyne, Technology Platform Lead at WGEA.

Here's how it works.

Reporting entities log into a secure portal built on Experience Cloud where they can directly provide their yearly reporting data using a questionnaire built on Public Sector Solutions OmniScripts. Self-service functions allow organisations to manage their organisations profile and their reporting data, make any administrative updates, and access a self-service knowledge base to help them understand how and what information to report. The portal also provides a service desk and support ticketing system so that customers who need additional help entering data or have a query not covered in the knowledge base can connect with the WGEA team directly. Built with Salesforce Digital Engagement, queries are linked directly to the entity's record in the system, giving WGEA a view of their activity and the ability to add case notes directly.

Once submitted, the reported data goes through a quality check. This is facilitated by Lightning Platform, which drives automation and workflows, and Mulesoft which helps to connect data across systems with APIs. Shield was layered on to help bring an additional layer of security to the system.

Data analysis is automated with Tableau, providing real-time insights and powering a series of dashboards and reports, which can be shared with reporting entities, industry stakeholders, Parliament - and even individual Australians, as all public data is shared on the WGEA Data Explorer and by the WGEA Communications via awareness campaigns using Marketing Cloud.

"The platform is a complete package. It's more than just a set of scorecards or a way to ingest data. Nearly everything that the Agency does is done via the platform," shared Leyne.

WGEA's platform is helping them deliver data-driven insights that inform actions making a difference for Australians.

Since going live, the system has shown a number of qualitative impacts, including giving the team the tools to:

Provide a one-stop digital environment for all users: "The development of the system-based analysis of data was a big step forward, enabling reporting organisaitons’ to submit and validate their data without additional, after the fact processing," said Douek.
Automate workflows, helping to reduce duplicate data requests and drive operational efficiencies: "For example, we can leverage data held in different parts of government, cutting down duplicative requests, which makes us faster and more efficient," explained Tonkin.
Analyse and optimise their data for actionable insights: "We're able to translate all this data into meaningful insights in many ways. Boards can use it to drive change within their own organisations or an industry. The data is also used for research, education advocacy work. We use it to showcase leading practice by high-achieving organisations, and Australians can use it to make informed decisions about career moves and potential employers," Leyne shared.
Respond with agility as their mission evolves: "The platform has really been able to just adapt and grow as we've needed it to. It's used by every member of the agency every day - it literally comes up in every meeting," said Douek.

WGEA's reporting platform, by the numbers:

13,500 organisations engaged
4.5m Australians' payroll data collected
73% reduction in support requests fielded YoY
8,500 support requests managed during the first 2 month of the reporting year

In an environment where many Departments, Agencies, and Ministries are being asked to respond quickly as society's needs evolve, WGEA is an example of how investment in technology is an investment in the new mission.

"The workplace gender equality conversation is changing fast, and we have to adapt with it. We're able to bring all this information into a transparent space and hold up that mirror to organisations - and to Australia - that helps them move the needle. This is a massive change." shared Douek.

WGEA uses the cloud to transform mandatory reporting and data management end-to-end.

WGEA launched an end-to-end reporting platform on the Salesforce Customer 360 for Government, built on the AWS Hyperforce infrastructure. It gives the team a set of digital tools to:

Support a secure one-stop reporting portal with self-service functionality for entities sharing their yearly data as mandated
Facilitate on-demand report generation where reporting entities can download several reports, like individual company data or whole industry benchmarking reports
Provide a detailed knowledge base to assist reporting entities with service desk capabilities for additional support
Enable real time data analysis for customer data quality feedback and automated analysis for the WGEA team

“It’s the brain of the organisation, and,at the centre of all our operations," said Felicity Leyne, Technology Platform Lead at WGEA.

Here's how it works.

"The platform is a complete package. It's more than just a set of scorecards or a way to ingest data. Nearly everything that the Agency does is done via the platform," shared Leyne.