It is that time of the year again, and the EEO-1 Reporting season is upon us. Are you aware of the revisions that have been implemented beginning with the 2017 reporting year?
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Department of Labor (DOL), and Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) are responsible for imposing employment discrimination laws, based on race, sex, and national origin, which employers must adhere to. To help combat workplace prejudice, the EEO-1 report collects data from private employers and federal contractors regarding the number of employees by job category, sex, race or ethnicity. However, on September 29, 2016 the EEOC announced a revision to the EEO-1 report, which would be enforced starting with the 2017 report. The newest addition to the report is the collection of summary pay data from employers, including federal contractors and subcontractors with 100 or more employees (U.S. EEOC, 2017).
More often than not, pay discrimination goes unnoticed, due to the scarcity of the information available about what employees are paid. “The EEOC and OFCCP are charged with the responsibility of enforcing federal prohibitions on pay discrimination including Title VII, the Equal Pay Act, and Executive Order 11246, but, until now, they lacked the employer-and establishment-specific data needed to assess allegations of pay discrimination” (U.S. EEOC, 2017). With the revision of the EEO-1 report, the new data should help provide insight about the current pay practices that employers are using.
Listed below is a brief description of the key changes that have been implemented.
1. Deadline: The 2017 report will be due on March 31, 2018.
2. Workforce snapshot period: Data for the report will now be collected from October 1st to December 31st.
3. Employers that will and will not file the revised EEO-1 report:
a. Private employers, including federal contractors and subcontractors, with 100 or more employees will submit the revised report.
b. Federal contractor and subcontractors with 50-99 employees will not submit the revised report. However, they will continue to report demographic information, as they have done in previous years.
c. Federal contractors and subcontractors with 49 or fewer employee, and companies without federal contractors with 99 or fewer employees, will not need to complete the EEO-1 report.
4. New reporting criteria:
a. Employers affected by the revision will report the total number of full-time and part-time employees, that they employed that year to each of the 12 pay bands listed on the EEO-1 report. To determine which pay band employees fit into, the employer will need to look at Box 1 of their W-2 form.
b. Employers will also need to calculate the number of hours worked that year by all employees in each pay band.
The new reporting style may seem daunting, but it is a necessary step, in order to decrease pay discrimination in the workforce. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has provided employers with detailed articles and training presentations that are available on their website, so make sure to take advantage of those resources!
References
https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/eeo1survey/2017survey-qanda.cfm
https://www.eeoc.gov/
