EE0-1

On August 29, 2017, the “Acting Chair” of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Victoria Lipnic, issued a statement indicating that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) “Knocked Down” the pay data collection provisions of the revised EEO-1 form, to review the “appropriateness” of the revisions under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). The new EEO-1 form was supposed to have gone into effect March 31, 2018, and required employers with 100 or more employees to report W-2 wage information and total hours worked for all employees by race, ethnicity, and sex within 12 proposed pay bands.

Existing EEO-1 obligations have not changed, but employers will not need to report on wages or hours worked. It is expected that EEOC will publish further details about what actions they will be taking and any future deadlines and timelines in the Federal Register. As the date for reporting was postponed until March 31, 2017, that is still the deadline for the EEO-1 report, there will be no reporting deadline in 2017.

VETS-4212

The VETS-4212 (formerly the VETS-100 and 100A) will still be required to be filed by September 30, 2017. Previously, the data for both the EEO-1 form (without the pay data added) and the VETS-4212 form could be taken from the same date, a “snapshot in time” if you will, (usually between July 1 and August 31 of each year). Additionally, the needed time frame of the “look back” of 12 months prior to the “snapshot date” that the organization chose, could be the same time frame used for both forms (EEO-1 and VETS-4212). As the reporting deadline for the EEO-1 has been postponed, the two forms may now have data taken from different time frames. This may be confusing for some organizations because they will have to generate the information at two different times.

There is some good news for organizations that need to file the VETS-4212 and the EEO-1 reports moving forward. A VETS letter dated July 24, 2017, states that its regulations “allow contractors to select December 31, as the basis for reporting the number of employees as the ending date of the twelve-month period, if the federal contractor has ‘previous written approval'” to do so. It also explains that the EEOC’s notice on the revised EEO-1 report provides written approval to select the December 31st date for all contractors that must file VETS-4212 forms. Therefore, if the new EEO-1 reporting time frame remains the same, beginning in 2018, contractors can select December 31st of the preceding year for their workforce snapshots for both the VETS-4212 form and the EEO-1 report.

If you find this confusing and need help navigating through this new system, or filing these new reports, give us a call at KardasLarson, and we will be happy to help you navigate through this sea of chaos!