Page 47 - DRG HR HANDBOOK- Nikita Pillay

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY AUDITS

AND COMPLIANCE

o you have 50 or more employees in your company? STEPS ENSURING EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
Or is your company’s annual turnover higher than (EE) COMPLIANCE
DSchedule 4 of the Employment Equity Act? If
STEP 1: Appoint an EE manager and form an EE
so, then you are labelled a ‘designated employer’. And
committee
with that label comes a lot of legal responsibilities,
the most important of which is to comply fully with STEP 2: Educate and train staff on their role and
the Employment Equity Act. If you don’t comply with responsibility as committee members
it completely, then you’ll face serious non-compliance
STEP 3: Conduct a workplace analysis with income
penalties, alongside costly legal procedures for you and
differential statements
your business.
STEP 4: Conduct an internal audit on the barriers and
The employer will be subject to a fine, the greater of
affirmative action
R1 500 000 or ranging between 2% and 10% of the
STEP 5: Discuss and plan goals and target for the next
employer’s turnover. The fine increases depending
five years
on the repetition of the contravention. In addition,
companies that falsely reported on employment equity STEP 6: Develop an EE plan in relation to compliance if
plans while not having such plans in place, will be there is a deviation from the norm
criminally prosecuted.
STEP 7: Structure the EE plan to accommodate for the
In August 2017, the Department of Labour announced goals and targets to be reached
a crackdown on companies to ensure that they comply
STEP 8: Engage in a meaningful consultation process
with the act. At the time the department said six JSE-
with the committee to ensure agree
listed companies had been found to be non-compliant
STEP 9: Verify and document statistics for reporting
and were referred for prosecution, since then the
Department of Labour is prosecuting 44 companies for STEP 10: Submit an annual EEA2 and EEA4 report
breaking Affirmative Action laws, five of these companies to the Department of Labour – signed off by the EE
have paid fines, while the rest of the companies are manager and the CEO
facing fines of R1.5 million each.
IMPORTANT SECTIONS OF COMPLIANCE
So, the message is clear: You must comply with the
1. Consult with employees as required by section 16
Employment Equity Act!
2. Conduct an analysis as required by section 19
Section 20(1) of the Employment Equity Act requires a
designated employer to prepare an employment equity 3. Prepare an employment equity plan as required by
plan which will achieve reasonable progress towards section 20
employment equity in that employer’s workforce. This 4. Implement its employment equity plan
employment equity plan must include the affirmative 5. Submit an annual report as required by section 21
action measures to be implemented, the procedures
6. Publish its report as required by section 22
used to monitor and evaluate the implementation of
7. Prepare a successive employment equity plan as
the plan, the timetable setting out the plan, objectives,
required by section 23
duration, procedures and internal management of
8. Assign responsibility to one or more senior
disputes regarding the plan and the numerical goals to
managers as required by section 24
be achieved of the appointment of underrepresented
persons from designated groups (“black people, women 9. Inform its employees as required by
and people with disabilities”) in order to achieve equality section 25
47
in the workplace. 10. Keep records as required by section 26.