Many employers wonder about this thing called “EEO” and whether they need to worry about it. Short answer, “YES!” Let’s learn more about what Equal Employment Opportunity questions that employers need to learn. From the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) website:
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to discriminate against a person because the person complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit.
Most employers with at least 15 employees are covered by EEOC laws (20 employees in age discrimination cases). Most labor unions and employment agencies are also covered.
The laws apply to all types of work situations, including hiring, firing, promotions, harassment, training, wages, and benefits.
Many employers are even required to ask specific, yet optional, Equal Employment Opportunity questions on the job applications to comply with their legal requirements. If you wonder if you are required by law to ask Equal Employment Opportunity questions on your employment applications, we encourage you to research your business/industry at the EEOC website.
At the end of the day, you are better to be safe than sorry and offer the optional EEO questions on your job apps. However, this could be quite painful, as the EEO text is quite lengthy! No worries, here at Ninja Gig we have made asking EEO questions super easy! With the click of a mouse, you can add/remove all EEO questions to your job openings. It’s that easy!
Ninja Gig makes customizing and accepting job applications for your small business a breeze! Sign up today for a free trial to see just how simple yet powerful our software is. We are sure you will be pleased with the results.