It’s Time to Report Your Employee’s Data…Again!

03.10.22Baylee Davies

It’s Time to Report Your Employee’s Data…Again!

It is that time of year again!  Time to report your employee data for 2021 to the CA Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH).

The Pay Reporting Portal and Templates employers should use to report their employee demographics and pay data have been updated from last year and are found on the DFEH website. Employers must report this information by April 1, 2022, and annually each year thereafter.

Private employers with 100 or more employees in the United States and at least one employee in California and who are required to file a federal EEO-1, must report pay and demographic information. Employers must also include temporary workers provided by a staffing agency or independent contractors if the individuals were included in the employer’s payroll and they were required to withhold federal social security taxes from their wages.

Many of the requirements are modeled after the information required by the Federal EEO-1 however please be aware there are some differences which have been indicated below.

One difference is the reporting of the information to the CA DFEH is due by April 1st, however, the reporting of the Federal EEO-1 information has a tentative deadline of May 17th, 2022. More information will be available on the Federal EEO-1 website as it is released.

Now is a good time to double-check your employee data to ensure you have the required information so you will be able to submit your report. This includes:

1. The number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex in 10 different job categories. The 10 job category definitions are the same as for the EEO-1 which provides a Job Classification Guide to assist with assigning employees to the correct job category.

  • Executive or senior-level officials and managers
  • First or mid-level officials and managers
  • Professionals
  • Technicians
  • Sales workers
  • Administrative support workers
  • Craftworkers
  • Operatives
  • Laborers and helpers
  • Service workers

2. The number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex whose annual earnings within the pay bands used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The current pay bands can be found on page 4 of the Occupational Employment Statistics survey.

3. The total number of hours worked by each employee plus the hours they were on any form of paid time off for which they were paid by the employer, such as vacation, sick, or holiday time. 

The Department of Fair Employment and Housing released guidance with some additional information:

  • Employers must choose a single pay period between October 1 and December 31st of the prior calendar year. This will serve as their ‘Snapshot Period.’
  • Employers should report sex using three categories: female, male and non-binary.
  • Employers may submit a federal EEO-1 Report if it contains the same or substantially similar pay data information. However, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is not currently requiring pay data to be reported. Unless this changes the standard federal EEO-1 will not be sufficient to meet the California requirements.
  • Use Form W-2 Box 5 (Medicare wages and tips) to assign employees to the particular pay band. The EEO-1 uses the information from W-2 Box 1 for this purpose.
  • For single establishment employers based in California, they should also include employees who are teleworking outside of California.

In addition, the DFEH issued guidance for multiple-establishment employers to include:

  • Employers should use the same establishments they use for their EEO-1 and assign employees to those same establishments for their California report.
  • If an employer is a multiple-establishment employer with locations only in California they should include all employees (including any employees teleworking outside of California) 
  • For multiple-establishment employers with locations inside and outside of California, the employer: 

1. Must report on its California establishments, all of its employees assigned to those locations (including any employees outside of California), and any California employees such as those working from home in California but assigned to an establishment outside of California.

2. May report on all of its establishments and employees both inside and outside of California.

How SDHRC Can Help

Don’t have the employee data you need and not sure how to go about collecting it?  We can help! Contact us for practical ideas on gathering your employee’s data so you are not scrambling to put together your report on the deadline of April 1st. We can also help with putting the report together to give you time to focus on more important things such as running your business!