It is of the utmost importance that as a designated employer you comply with the rules and regulations as set out in the Employment Equity Act, failure to do so may result in an audit from the Department of Labour and your business could incur heavy fines as a result.

We want to assist you in ensuring that you know how to comply with the act, by introducing you to the 3 pillars of compliance: submitting statutory employment equity reports; compiling and implementing an Employment Equity Plan, conducting employment equity and diversity awareness training.

1. Submitting Statutory Employment Equity Reports:

There are two reports required for submission on an annual basis the EEA2 report and the EEA4 Report. These reports are requirements from the Department of Labour and are to be compiled and submitted within the period provided by the Department of Labour on a yearly basis. The EEA2 reports focuses on your current workforce and numerical goals whereas the EEA4 report focuses on the income differentials of different occupational levels. The submission window opens on 1 October.

2. Compiling and Implementing an Employment Equity Plan

An Employment Equity Plan must be created and implemented in the business to ensure compliance with the Employment Equity Act, the first steps in this process is to assign responsibility to the necessary Employment Equity Managers, training should be provided, as well as a consultative forum established to communicate with and keep all stakeholders informed. The next step to do the analysis of your policies and procedures and identifying any barriers or risks that are negatively impacting diversity and designated groups in the company. From here you will develop your Employment Equity Plan – which addresses the barriers identified in your analysis. The plan will then be implemented and monitored with reporting of the plan to the Department of Labour as per the act requirements.

3. Conducting Employment Equity and Diversity Awareness Training

As part of your employment equity compliance and implementation plan – regular training on diversity awareness should be conducted with relevant stakeholders. This is often training provided to an employment equity committee which has been set up as the consultative forum for your employment equity planning. Diversity training and awareness is a necessity when implementing your employment equity plan and forms part of the compliance process.

Apex Transformation Advisory has a team of professional employment equity experts to assist you with all your employment equity needs including planning, implementation and reporting.