The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a government agency charged with enforcing federal anti-discrimination in employment laws. The EEOC also develops regulations to best implement the federal laws under its jurisdiction.
Currently, the EEOC oversees employer compliance with:
- Civil Rights Act (CRA) – allows jury trials, as well as compensatory and punitive damage awards, for employees who are intentionally discriminated against.
- Title VII – a law within the CRA which makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.
- Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) – an amendment to Title VII, making it illegal to discriminate against a woman because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a medical condition arising from either.
- Equal Pay Act (EPA) – makes it illegal to pay different wages to men and women if they perform equal work in the same workplace.
- Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) – protects individuals 40 years of age and older from discrimination due to age.
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – makes it illegal to discriminate against a qualified person with a disability, and requires reasonable accommodation for a known mental or physical limitation of a disabled individual. This law applies to the private sector, as well as state and local governments.
- Rehabilitation Act – is exactly the same as the ADA, but applies to federal employees.
- Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) – makes it illegal to discriminate against persons because of genetic information.
While the laws enforced by the EEOC do not specifically require recordkeeping to demonstrate compliance, the EEOC advises developing robust policy and procedure, as well as staff training, to address any potential liability. Employers are encouraged to develop employee handbooks that detail: behavior codes, dress codes, sexual harassment policy, hiring practices and policies, promotion policy, and other codes of conduct. In addition, employers are encouraged to routinely train and remind all staff and contractors of policies, hiring practices, and codes of conduct. In each case, employers are highly encouraged to receive certification from employees that any handbook, policy or training has been understood and agreed to.
To prevent liabilities and demonstrate anti-discrimination regulation compliance, employers face the task of distributing a lot of important company material to a wide audience. Additionally, this material is subject to change as the size, shape and direction of the company changes. It is important that, for each change in policy, the changes are documented and distributed to employees.
How DocRead can help
DocRead is compliance software for SharePoint that grants an employer the ability to distribute documentation to specific user groups, certify that the documentation has been read and agreed to, and monitor the progress of the documentation’s acceptance.
DocRead ensures that documents are distributed to appropriate employees or groups of employees and that a record is kept of each employee’s certification of receipt. The paperless environment that DocRead creates allows for the storage of and easy access to large amounts of compliance paperwork for each employee.
DocRead allows the employer to choose the appropriate policy or training document to distribute and the appropriate group of employees to receive the document.
Employees are required to read the document and certify that they have understood and agree to its contents. They must check the 'I agree' box and then click the 'confirm' button.
The agreement message is fully customizable, so you can tailor the message to meet your specific requirements.
Employees may print out the assigned policy or training document for their records, and once they have acknowledged their acceptance of the notification, they also receive a reading receipt that they may download or print for their records. The reading receipts are securely stored in a central database, allowing quick access and time-stamped verification of compliance.
DocRead also provides reading reports that can be used to monitor the progress of the document’s acceptance, clearly outlining how many have been assigned, completed or are overdue.
DocRead can help
DocRead has been helping our customers managing their policies and procedures in SharePoint for over 12 years.