The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s latest 4-year Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) continues to make agency-initiated investigation and litigation of employment policies and practices an enforcement priority. The EEOC’s priorities include:
- Preventing exclusionary practices in recruiting and hiring, such as discriminatory screening tools, background checks and date-of-birth inquiries,
- Protecting immigrant, migrant and other vulnerable workers, focusing on disparate pay, job segregation, harassment and trafficking,
- Addressing emerging and developing issues, such as ADA coverage, reasonable accommodations, and sex discrimination issues,
- Enforcing equal pay laws,
- Removing obstacles to the legal system, such as retaliatory actions, failure to retain records, and overly restrictive waivers and settlement agreements, and
- Outreach activities emphasizing the combined, systemic effect of unlawful harassment based on race, ethnicity, religion, age and disability.
Now is a good time for employers to conduct an internal audit of their employment policies and practices to ensure they are in harmony with the EEOC’s enforcement agenda.