EEO Compliance Are You Spending Most of Your Time Defending Yourself Against Complaints? Having Problems Ensuring Fairness in Your Selection Process?

In today's "litigation happy" environment it is critical that your organization's selection, promotion, training and termination programs are in compliance with EEO guidelines. The following provides an overview of key EEO guidelines and Competency Management Incorporated's (CMI) related experience.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, is the major federal law prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Title VII and the following Acts are administered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and enforced by the EEOC and the Courts.

• Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, prohibits discrimination in employment against individuals forty years of age and older.
• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. This Act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with a disability unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the business.

Typical awards and settlements are in the millions of dollars. You may have seen the headline "$2.1 million settlement in PUC age bias suit" with regard to the EEOC versus a western state Public Utilities Commission. The lead attorney for the complainants was quoted as stating:

"The bottom line is that it's [the PUC selection process] going to be a significantly different, more job related testing process monitored and developed by professionals."

Similarly you possibly read the Business Week article "The Swat Team of Bias Litigation" which mentioned the $107 million settlement in a class action Title VII case against a large supermarket chain.

We are the organization selected by the PUC and approved by the EEOC to design, implement and monitor the new process referred to by the plaintiff's attorney. We also helped the supermarket chain reduce the size of the settlement, and were selected by them, and approved by plaintiffs, to design and implement a Company- wide selection and promotion process.

We are COMPETENCY MANAGEMENT INCORPORATED, a human resource consulting firm whose scope of services falls into two basic domains:

• Assessing a specific human resource area or issue for an organization and providing practical, legally defensible solutions.
• Litigation Support Services in cases relating to selection, placement, promotion, age discrimination, compensation and validation litigation, for both plaintiff and defendant. For example: HR programs review and evaluation, "Retrospective" job analysis, Foundation and opinion research, Assistance in preparation of opposing Expert Witness depositions and trial cross examinations, Implementation of consent decree obligations, Serving in the capacity of an expert witness, including deposition and trial testimony.

CMI's staff has experience that includes trial testimony, depositions, assistance in discovery and Consent Decree content design. Types of cases we have been involved in addition to the two noted above, include:

• Design, validation and successful defense of a selection program for sergeants in a large urban Police Department. Similarly, serving as ‘industrial psychologist expert' to overview and ensure fairness in the development, administration and outcome of Police Sergeant, Lieutenant and Captain examinations.
• Design of a unique job interest-based research survey to successfully reduce settlement liability in defense of an organization's existing selection, placement and training programs in a Title VII case.
• Successful defense of an ADEA (age) and Title VII case brought by the EEOC, for a State agency. Included redesign of promotional exams, training programs and feedback processes.
• Demonstration of job related relevance of selection programs in spite of apparent adverse impact.
• Designed and implemented selection and promotion process, in compliance with Consent Decree settlement, that reduced or eliminated adverse impact for protected classes while meeting client expectations for quality employees.

Interested in learning more? Please call +1 313.885.4421 and ask to talk directly with Jeff Daum, Ph.D., CMI’s President, or use the contact form link below.