TOP TIP: A Primer On Reporting EEO-1 Pay Data

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As we previously reported, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will be collecting 2017 and 2018 pay data as required by its revised EEO-1 form. But what does that actually mean to employers?

Employers with 100 or more employees, as well as government contractors and subcontractors with 50 or more employees, are required to submit an annual EEO-1 form, which has traditionally collected demographic data (race, ethnicity and sex) across 10 job categories (Component 1). Those employers with 100 or more employees (but not government contractors and subcontractors with 50-99 employees) will now also submit data on pay and hours worked (Component 2), broken down into the same job and demographic categories, and into one of 12 pay bands for each job category. This information will be submitted through an online portal that the EEOC will make available in mid-July.

In order to prepare for the submission, employers must take the following steps with regard to each reporting year (2017 and 2018):

  • Identify a “workforce snapshot period,” which is a pay period of the employer’s choice between October 1st and December 31st of the EEO-1 reporting year.
  • Identify the employees employed during the “workforce snapshot period,” including their job category, sex, race and ethnicity, as previously reported for Component 1 purposes.
  • For each employee, employers will need to determine their pay data and hours worked.
    • The pay data for each employee will come from Box 1 of their Form W-2.
    • Based on the amount of pay, the employee will be assigned to one of 12 pay bands set forth for the applicable job category.
    • The hours worked data for each non-exempt employee will be the recorded hours worked during the EEO-1 reporting year (because under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers are supposed to track the actual hours worked by non-exempt employees).
    • Because employers are not required to track the hours worked by exempt employees, the hours worked data for each exempt employee can be presumed to be 40 hours per week for full-time employees, and 20 hours per week for part-time employees, multiplied by the number of weeks employed during the EEO-1 reporting year. If the employer actually tracks the hours worked by exempt employees, however, it can use that actual data instead.
  • The individual pay and hours data are then aggregated and reported in boxes by race, ethnicity and sex in each of the 12 pay bands, within each of the 10 job categories. If there is no data for a particular box, the box will be left blank.

Additionally, in a progress report to the court in the lawsuit resulting in the reinstatement of the pay data collection requirement, the EEOC stated that by approximately June 3, 3019 it would provide contact information for the email and phone helpdesk to assist employers with questions and concerns about the collection of pay data, with the desk to be operational by approximately June 17, 2019. The EEOC reiterated that it was still on track to open the pay data collection from July 15 through September 30, 2019.