T - arget Setting for Gender Equality: A - Review of the Literature

This research was commissioned by WGEA to inform the development of a menu of targets by WGEA in response to recommendation 3.1a of the review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012. [...] This report approaches this task by asking: What is the evidence that can inform the use of gender equality targets by organisations to achieve their gender equality objectives? And what evidence can inform WGEA in its creation and communication of a menu of targets for organisations? To optimise the relevance of these findings for WGEA’s operations and functions, the insights and implications dra. [...] More informatively, studies of the success factors of organisational change more broadly have discovered that it is frequency with which a project is reviewed and monitored for progress, rather than the length of time that a project is anticipated to take to complete, that predicts the successful attainment of the outcome (Sirkin, Keenan and Jackson 2005). [...] The broader implication of this research is that, for targets to be inclusive of intersectionality and non-binary genders, it is important to extend them beyond metrics of the pay gap and headcounts, and prioritise encompassing measures of employees’ experiences, such as in relation to psychological safety, the incidence of harassment, perceptions of equitable treatment, feelings of inclusion and. [...] One way to operationalise the need for resource commitment is to include an action step on the allocation of specific resources to the implementation and ongoing monitoring of targets on the target menu, as a way to boost organisations’ likelihood of achieving their targets.