The EEOC’s Strategic Plan Provides Insight Into Its Priorities, Including Systemic Discrimination

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has released its Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2022-2026, effective immediately. This document provides employers with an overview of the EEOC’s particular areas of focus. As explained by the EEOC, highlights of the plan include the following:

  • Increased focus on systemic discrimination, by expanding the EEOC’s capacity to eliminate systemic barriers to equal opportunity in the workplace, including training staff to identify and investigate systemic cases and devoting additional resources to systemic enforcement.
  • Improved monitoring of conciliation agreements to ensure workplaces are free from discrimination after the EEOC makes a finding of discrimination.
  • Enhanced intake services to potential charging parties, respondents, and representatives. Under the Plan, the EEOC will focus on improving and expanding access to intake services, increasing the availability of intake interview appointments, and improving overall service to the public.
  • Leverage technology and innovative outreach strategies to expand the agency’s reach to diverse populations; vulnerable communities; and small, new, and disadvantaged or underserved employers.
  • Promote promising practices that employers can adopt to prevent discrimination in the workplace.

We note that this document is different than the EEOC’s Strategic Enforcement Plan, which identifies the EEOC’s top substantive area priorities for enforcement activity. Earlier this year, the EEOC released its draft Strategic Enforcement Plan for 2023-2027, which we discussed in our January 2023 E-Update.