About The HWEI Benchmarking Submission - Pride in Health + Wellbeing

About The HWEI Benchmarking Submission

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The annual Health + Wellbeing Equality Index (HWEI) has been designed as a FREE tool to assess and benchmark LGBTQ-inclusive service provision and workforce inclusion amongst health, wellbeing, and human service providers.

Benefits include:

  • Free submission for your organisation
  • Baseline your LGBTQ inclusive service delivery, and workforce initiatives and grow year-on-year,
  • Each year results are anonymously compared within your sector
  • Free report on your results.

This index was developed on the back of the outstanding success of the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI). The AWEI was instrumental in measuring, benchmarking, and successfully shifting practice in LGBTQ workplace inclusion; this new index is expected to be instrumental in annually measuring and shifting practice within health, wellbeing, and human services.

Participation will provide service providers not only with clear guidelines in terms of getting started but a reportable gap analysis of their current practice or results that can also be used for progressing work in LGBTQ-inclusive service provision. It also allows Pride in Health + Wellbeing to showcase examples of best practice from within the submitting organisations.

These benefit both staff within their agencies and service users, regardless of how they identify.

HWEI  Facts and Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need to be a member of Pride in Health + Wellbeing to participate?

No,

You do not need to be a member of Pride in Health + Wellbeing to participate in the index, all organisations are encouraged to submit.

What does it cost?

It is Free. 

There is no cost to participate. This National benchmarking and feedback service is provided free of charge to Australian health, human, and wellbeing service providers with the sole purpose being to measure, benchmark, and influence practice in LGBTQ-inclusive service provision.

What will we receive in terms of results?

Participating service providers will receive a traffic light report indicating full, partial or zero points for each question.

You will also be benchmarked against other participating organisations (all scores confidential) to enable you to see how you compare to other service providers. This will be provided to you as a PowerPoint presentation. You will receive a certificate of participation, a “tier” status in terms of overall score alongside an opportunity to be recognised within our Annual Australian Pride in Health + Wellbeing Awards. Information received can be fed directly into your inclusion action plans and your results data can be used to track progress year-on-year.

You will also receive a copy of any benchmarking publication/data produced.

How often should we participate?

Each year. 

Ideally annually; although there is no obligation for you to participate each year. If you do you will be able to measure your organisation’s inclusion journey year after year.

It will identify areas of strength (and weakness) that can help you plan your coming year’s activities.

Can we participate anonymously?

Yes, you can.

You will still receive your scoresheet and benchmarking data. On the submission page, you can choose to be identified (organisation name only, not score) dependent upon the tier you reach (ranging from Participating Tier to Gold) or not at all (completely anonymous).

For those who wish to be identified, only your organisation name will be identified, not your score.

Do I have to complete all the sections?

Even if you are starting your journey you will benefit from going through the HWEI.

You do not have to submit evidence for every section.

We will mark all the areas you complete. It is not an accreditation but a benchmark.

The Index allows you to demonstrate your year-on-year growth, and to focus on the areas most important to your organisation in that year.

How does this relate to Rainbow Tick?

The HWEI index acts as a health check on your Rainbow Tick readiness.

The HWEI covers many of the same areas of competence as the Rainbow Tick, so completing the HWEI is good preparation for a Rainbow Tick accreditation process, if this is your end goal.

The HWEI will also identify any areas of improvement for your organisation, allowing you to be thoroughly prepared before the audit. The HWEI also is a good way to gather your evidence in preparation for Rainbow Tick accreditation

When do I get my results?

Organisational results are released after the award announcements at the Australian Pride in Health + Wellbeing Awards event. At the awards event, the Service Provider of the Year is announced as well as the participation tiers achieved. Following the Awards, organisations are emailed their results pack as well as comparisons with other sector organisations. The benchmarking results are released just after the awards announcements.

Where do I go for more information or for any questions that I have?

Please contact your Relationship Manager if you are a Pride in Health + Wellbeing Member

Otherwise call our office on (02) 9206 2139 and one of our team will be able to assist.

Register for the 2024 HWEI Submission here.

Please sign up to our monthly newsletter to stay up to date.

Submitting your Index

Submissions will be accepted from Monday, 15th January 2024 – 11:59 pm Monday, 5th February 2024 (AEDT).

For Hand-Delivered, Couriered or Mailed Submissions:

Submissions will be accepted from Monday, 15th January 2024 – 11:59 pm Monday, 5th February 2024 (AEDT).

Please send to:

Health + Wellbeing Equality Index Submissions
ACON’s Pride Inclusion Programs
414 Elizabeth Street
SURRY HILLS NSW  2010

All documents must be received by the deadline. No extensions will be given.  Late submissions will only be accepted if you can provide evidence of the document being sent within reasonable time-frames to allow for delivery by the cut-off (ie. accommodating any postage/courier delays).

If You Are Sending Your Submission Electronically:

Large file transfer programs may include but are not limited to Dropbox, Google Docs, ParcelPost, Microsoft OneDrive or any other internally approved large file transfer mechanisms.

Please do not email your evidence and attachments as we cannot take responsibility that all attachments will arrive.

To send your submission electronically utilise a large file transfer program to upload your document and all attachments. Send the URL to download these files via email to: hwei@acon.org.au

Please note, emails with file attachments will not be accepted for electronic submissions. 

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