Know the EEOC: Employment Opportunity for All

Discrimination in the workplace can be a very sensitive topic to bring up. We’ve all heard of various laws the government creates to keep places of business fair, and most of our jobs tell us about or make us watch videos about workplace equality when we first start. And that’s just the beginning. To get the full picture of workplace equality issues, companies should familiarize themselves with the EEOC.

The EEOC was first established in 1965, and has only grown from there. It handles all matters of workplace equality, from race to religion to gender to disabilities. Recently, it’s been enforcing policies against “sex stereotyping” to protect people of different sexual orientations. They also deal with allegations of sexual harassment and other issues involving discrimination based on pregnancy.

The EEOC is in charge of gathering information from employers about their employees to be sure these laws and rules are being followed. If this information is not presented, the EEOC has an investigative compliance policy to subpoena the information, or file suit against the business.

Each year the EEOC deals with close to 100,000 charges of workplace discrimination. In 2012, they reported their most frequent charges to be retaliation in the workplace. Race and sex discrimination charges followed that. In the same year, they helped employees recover a total of just over $44 million. They deal with companies of every size, too. The smallest of shops to the largest of corporate giants need to report to the EEOC in some way.

Naturally, you don’t want to be one of those companies that have to pay out funds! The best way to solve these personnel problems is to keep them from developing in the first place. Your best bet is to familiarize yourself with the EEOC website, which has an entire section just for employers.