Sykes, Ashley E.Independent schools with more than 100 employees are reminded that they have a legal obligation to file an EEO-1 report with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)—and the December 5 deadline is here. If an employer fails to file by this deadline, they will receive a notice from the EEOC and will have until January 9, 2024 to file. Venable has the following quick tips and reminders to make your EEO-1 filing easier.
The EEO-1 form asks employers to identify employees by job category and by race or ethnicity and gender. The job categories include Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers, First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers, Professionals, Administrative Support, and Service Employees. Schools with questions may find the EEOC's EEO-1 Component 1 Job Classification Guide helpful in determining the category into which their employees are properly classified.
The race and ethnicity classifications require an employer to first classify an employee based on ethnicity: whether the employee is Hispanic or Latino. Employees who are Hispanic or Latino do not need to be further identified by race. Anyone who is not Hispanic or Latino must be classified as White, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Asian, American Indian or Alaskan Native, or Two or More Races.
Every employee also must be identified within their ethnic or racial classification as male or female. At this time, the EEO-1 report currently provides only binary options (i.e., male or female) for reporting an employee's sex. Schools may, however, voluntarily choose to report demographic data for nonbinary employees by utilizing the "comments" section of the report. When reporting nonbinary employees, schools should not assign such employees to the male or female categories or any other categories within the report. Instead, in the comments section, include the number of nonbinary employees within any given job category, race, and ethnicity.
Reminder: The best way to obtain the information needed to comply with EEO-1 reporting requirements is to issue a self-identification survey to employees, usually at the beginning of their employment or when there are changes to the EEO-1 reporting form. This survey should include a statement indicating that the information requested is for statistical purposes only, to be used to supply the government with information, and in no way will be used in evaluating job applicants or in making personnel decisions. If an employee declines to self-identify, the school may conduct a visual survey or use other employment records to determine the information required by the EEO-1. Self-identification should be a confidential process, and any record of self-identification should be kept confidential, separate from the employee's other personnel files. It is also worth noting that regardless of whether an employer doubts the veracity of an employee's self-identification, the employer must accept the self-identification made by the employee. If the sex provided by the employee in the self-identification process differs from the sex provided in the initial employment records, the school should utilize the sex provided by the employee in the self-identification.
In filing their annual EEO-1, schools must also (1) select a date between October 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022, as its "workforce snapshot period"; and (2) designate an employee as the "account holder" for the EEO-1 report. The account holder can file using the EEOC's EEO-1 Component 1 Online Filing System. Schools that need the help of counsel in fulfilling their EEO-1 reporting requirements may contact Caryn Pass, Grace Lee, Janice Gregerson, or Ashley Sykes for assistance.