Discrimination News

Best Practices Of Private Sector Employers

Commissioner Reginald E. Jones was appointed by Chairman Gilbert F. Casellas to head the Task Force to study "best" equal employment opportunity policies, programs, and practices of private sector employers. While the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Commission or EEOC) is the enforcement agency responsible for compliance with its statutory mandates, the Commission has an important role in facilitating voluntary compliance through education, training, outreach, and policy guidance. Indeed, the primary goal of the Task Force is to facilitate voluntary compliance in its examination of business policies, programs, and practices that will be useful to employers in structuring systems and policies that are consistent with their business priorities as well as with their equal employment opportunity (EEO) obligations and diversity objectives. The Task Force also has presented employers with the opportunity to showcase those policies, programs, and practices of which they are particularly proud.

Accordingly, the Task Force set out to look at noteworthy business practices by which employers are complying with their EEO obligations and diversity objectives, especially practices thought of as creative or innovative. The Task Force also set out to catalogue its findings in such a way that they will be useful to employers, especially smaller and medium-sized employers that are less likely to employ professional personnel and legal staffs. Additionally, ideas were solicited about how the Commission could better assist entities in developing best policies, programs, and practices. The Task Force thus examined what statutory, regulatory, policy or operational changes by the Commission may better facilitate the development of best policies, programs, and practices.

The Task Force divided its study of policies, programs, and practices into six major groupings: (1) recruitment and hiring; (2) promotion and career advancement; (3) terms and conditions; (4) termination and downsizing; (5) alternative dispute resolution; and (6) other. The focus of "recruitment and hiring" is on affirmative recruitment programs designed to create a diverse workforce, such as internships, recruitment strategies, and education and training programs used for hiring. The focus of "promotion and career advancement" is on programs that have eliminated barriers to the advancement of women, people from diverse ethnic and racial groups, persons with disabilities, and older workers (those forty or older). Such programs as mentoring, education and training for purposes of promotion, and career enhancement initiatives were considered in this group. The focus of "terms and conditions" is on disability and religious accommodation programs, and on sexual harassment, pay equity, insurance, employee benefits, and work-life and family-friendly policies and practices. The focus of the section on "termination and downsizing" is on such areas as retraining and placement programs for employees displaced by downsizing programs, nondiscriminatory early retirement programs, and insurance. "Alternative dispute resolution" focuses on early resolution of employment discrimination complaints and voluntary and effective alternative dispute resolution programs. The "other" category embraces any other policies, programs, or practices not readily identifiable in the previous five groups or where there was an overlap between or among groups.

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	Did You Know?
	The law requires equal pay for equal work The Equal Pay Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in the payment of wages or benefits, where men and women perform work of similar skill, effort, and responsibility for the same employer under similar working conditions.