FY 2003 ANNUAL PERFORMANCE PLAN

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Vision and Mission

Strategic Initiatives

5-Point Plan

Annual Performance Plan and Budget Overview

Total Agency Budget

Budget and Strategic Goals

STRATEGIC GOAL 1
Enforce Federal Civil Rights Employment Laws

Private Sector Enforcement

Federal Sector Enforcement

State and Local Program

STRATEGIC GOAL 2
Promote Equal Opportunity in Employment

Outreach and Technical Assistance to Employers

Outreach and Technical Assistance to Employees

STRATEGIC GOAL 3
Enhance Agency Effectiveness to Achieve Our Mission and Strategic Goals

Staff Effectiveness

Policy Guidance and Technical Assistance

Agency Infrastructure

Verification and Validation of Agency Information

Program Evaluations

The Commission⁽¹⁾ is over 36 years old, yet its mission today is as vital as it was when it was formed as a result of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Cari M. Dominguez became the Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on August 6, 2001. In a message to employees, Chair Dominguez said: "... I believe that EEOC is a very special agency, rich in history. At my swearing-in, I said that the building materials used to erect this agency are not the typical ones; rather they include the blood, sweat, tears and struggles of those who saw wrong and tried to right it. I can think of no richer legacy, nor a more important mission, than the one we are here to discharge." Our Mission Statement conveys to employers and employees alike that "... no worker [will] be left behind for reasons as wasteful and abhorrent as prejudice and discrimination. ... [EEOC's] mission captures the promise of America and the mandate of our times."

Our Vision

Become the World's Preeminent Civil Rights Employment Law Agency and Serve as the Standard Bearer for Excellence in Outreach, Enforcement and Professionalism.

Our Mission

Eradicate employment Discrimination at the Workplace.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

This Annual Performance Plan is composed of several interrelated strategic initiatives. The initiatives, both the Administration's and the Agency's, work together to support the agency's vision and mission.

The Chair and the agency's senior leadership have developed a 5-Point Plan. The Plan is a strategic framework through which the agency will accomplish its vision and mission. It builds upon what the agency has done to improve its operations and seeks to broaden the agency's reach through increased education, outreach, mediation, and strategic enforcement and litigation. Our goal is to provide the best service possible at the least cost to the American taxpayer.

This fiscal year 2003 Annual Performance Plan fully supports the 5-Point Plan, effectively directs the allocation of our resources and sets the stage for future fiscal years.

To achieve our vision and mission, our 5-Point Plan will focus on the following important elements:

• Proactive Prevention - The EEOC will pursue efforts geared toward prevention to combat employment discrimination. Our focus will be on providing information and solutions that will enable us to identify and solve problems before they escalate into intractable conflict.
• Proficient Resolution - Our goal is to achieve quality services that are fair and cost effective. We will ensure that all EEOC activities and functions are consistent, accurate and timely. In both the private and federal sector complaint processes, the EEOC will seek ways to evaluate and improve every stage of these processes.
• Strategic Enforcement and Litigation - Using all of the tools and resources at its disposal, the EEOC must make the greatest impact possible to eradicate employment discrimination in the private and federal sectors. We will determine those areas where the agency needs to provide more attention.
• Promote and Expand Mediation/ADR - Promoting and expanding mediation and other types of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is the centerpiece of the EEOC's 5-Point Plan.
• EEOC as a Model Workplace - The President's Management Agenda is the roadmap for the final point of our 5-Point Plan to make EEOC a model workplace. The President's Agenda addresses important enhancements to internal agency operations and its interface with the American public.

In addition to the President's Management Agenda, we are also incorporating Administration and Commission initiatives into this Annual Performance Plan.

The President's Management Agenda

The key features of the President's Management Agenda are:

• Integrate budget and performance by focusing on agency results.
• Strategically manage human capital.
• Plan for competitive sourcing of identified agency functions to bring the best features of competition between private and public sources to improve services to the American public.
• Improve performance of the timeliness and accuracy of financial data and payments.
• Expand electronic government to deliver services and benefits to the public.

The President's New Freedom Initiative

• The New Freedom Initiative is part of the President's ongoing efforts to build a single nation of justice and opportunity by improving access for people with disabilities to all aspects of mainstream American life.

The Freedom to Compete Initiative

• The EEOC's Freedom to Compete Initiative fully supports the President's efforts by identifying strategies that promote fair and open competition in the workplace without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, or disability. The Freedom to Compete Initiative will promote best workplace practices that use the best human talent available to preserve our country's leading role in the global economy.

Executive Order 12067

• The EEOC will reinvigorate its coordination role as the lead federal civil rights agency for coordinating employment discrimination policy.

Agency Restructuring

• The EEOC is working with an outside consultant to review its current organization to recommend ways to restructure to effectively support implementation of the President's Management Agenda.

ANNUAL PERFORMANCE PLAN AND BUDGET OVERVIEW

Our Annual Performance Plan for fiscal year 2003 adopts the overall structure in our current Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2000-2005. During fiscal year 2002 and fiscal year 2003, we will review our Strategic Plan's Strategic Goals and Objectives in light of our 5-Point Plan, the President's Management Agenda and our other critical initiatives. Until a new strategic plan is adopted, however, our current Strategic Plan will continue to guide the framework for this Fiscal Year 2003 Annual Performance Plan with the following three strategic goals:

• Strategic Goal 1: Enforce Federal Civil Rights Employment Laws;
• Strategic Goal 2: Promote Equal Opportunity in Employment; and,
• Strategic Goal 3: Enhance Agency Effectiveness to Achieve our Mission and Strategic Goals.

The Goals contain a total of eight strategic objectives.

Finally, the agency's broad strategic goals are linked to our budget in the following way:

TOTAL AGENCY BUDGET

Two budgetary program activities comprise the agency's total budget: (1) Enforce EEO Laws and Promote Equal Opportunity, and (2) Executive Direction and Support.

BUDGET AND STRATEGIC GOALS

The first budgetary activity combines resources dedicated to EEOC's Strategic Goals 1 and 2, as shown below:

STRATEGIC GOAL 1 Enforce Federal Civil Rights Employment Laws.

This Strategic Goal includes the agency's enforcement programs for the private and federal sectors, including charge processing contracts with state and local Fair Employment Practices Agencies.

STRATEGIC GOAL 2 Promote Equal Opportunity in Employment.

This Strategic Goal focuses on preventing employment discrimination by emphasizing outreach, technical assistance and voluntary compliance with a broad range of stakeholders. These activities promote understanding of the laws enforced by the Commission and emphasizes our efforts to reach out to employers, employees and members of the public, including small businesses and under-served communities.

The second budgetary activity includes resources dedicated to EEOC's Strategic Goal 3, as shown below:

STRATEGIC GOAL 3 Enhance Agency Effectiveness to Achieve Our Mission and Strategic Goals

This Strategic Goal concentrates on areas to improve support operations to better enable the agency to meet its goals and objectives. It includes such areas as enhancing staff effectiveness, policy direction and guidance, and improving the agency's infrastructure.

The following pages highlight the agency's efforts to achieve these Strategic Goals and the performance measures developed for fiscal year 2003.

STRATEGIC GOAL 1
Enforce Federal Civil Rights Employment Laws

Three major programs cover our nationwide investigative and litigation activities under Strategic Goal 1: the private sector program, the federal sector program, and the state and local program.

Private Sector Enforcement

The Commission's private sector enforcement program is vital to the statutes we enforce. Individuals file charges alleging employment discrimination. We assist them in the charge filing process, offer mediation to both charging parties and respondents charged, review and investigate their charges, and conduct other settlement efforts throughout the charge process. Finally, in appropriate cases, we file litigation based on the merits of a case, the legal precedents involved, and the effective, strategic use of the agency's limited resources.

Our fiscal year 2003 measures focus on efforts that support our private sector enforcement program.

Strategic Objective 1.1.

Improve the effectiveness of the private sector enforcement program, including the use of charge prioritization, mediation and litigation.

Measures for Strategic Objective

Program Highlights

Over the past few years, the Commission has made considerable gains in improving its private sector enforcement program. In fiscal year 2003, we are building upon past successes. Our private-sector enforcement measures will inform us on how well we are achieving several key aspects of our 5-Point Plan.

Our fiscal year 2003 measures track the timeliness of resolving charges (including reducing the processing time and the charge inventory) and the proper categorization of charges, so that appropriate resources are deployed. These measures will show the effectiveness of our private sector enforcement program.

In fiscal year 2001, 64% of administratively processed private sector charges were resolved within 180 days. Our mediation program contributed immensely to achieving this objective. We expect to continue this important accomplishment. In fiscal year 2003, we will continue to focus on using ADR by continuing the changes made in fiscal year 2002 to expand the categories of charges eligible for mediation and the points in the process where mediation is available.

Also, our charge prioritization program is invaluable in helping the agency prioritize its work and manage its workload more effectively. Proper charge categorization is critical to effectively administer the enforcement process. In fiscal year 2001, a sample of charge files revealed that 90% of the files contained information that supported the charge category. We expect to maintain this performance level in fiscal year 2003.

Federal Sector Enforcement

Our federal sector enforcement program focuses on eradicating employment discrimination in the federal government. Its emphasis is different from EEOC's private sector enforcement program in several important ways. In the private sector program, individuals file charges directly with the Commission. Individuals in the federal sector file complaints with their own federal agencies first. The agencies initially investigate allegations of employment discrimination. Complainants can then request a hearing by the EEOC on the allegations, which is not part of the private sector enforcement process. Also, a complainant or federal agency can file an appeal with the EEOC. This appeals procedure is also not part of the private sector enforcement process. If dissatisfied with the outcome, federal sector complainants can file a lawsuit in federal court, similar to a private sector charging party.

In addition to hearings and appeals programs for federal sector complainants, our enforcement efforts include on-site reviews in federal agencies as part of our oversight role. These reviews help us identify concerns and advise federal agency managers about the federal sector process. Similar to the private sector program, we also establish policies implementing the equal employment opportunity laws and conduct outreach, education and technical assistance activities to prevent or correct discriminatory practices in the federal sector.

Strategic Objective 1.2.

Enhance the effectiveness of the federal sector program.

Measures for Strategic Objective

EEO Cases from Other Federal Agencies

Measures for Strategic Objective

Internal EEO Cases

Program Highlights

Hearings and appeals are the two major components of EEOC's federal sector program. Over the past few years, we have shown considerable improvement in each facet measured and plan to continue this direction in fiscal year 2003. Our focus will be to continue reducing the complaint inventory by resolving more hearings and appeals within 180 days. Also, we modified our measure addressing the aged inventory of appeal cases to reflect the increased attention to cases over 500 days old. We will also continue to improve the processing time and quality of our own EEO investigations and hearings.

One particular strategy to accomplish our goals is to use Alternative Dispute Resolution techniques to resolve workplace disputes in federal employment; consistent with our 5-Point Plan. In fiscal year 2002, we are piloting the use of ADR in hearings throughout the country and expect to expand its use in fiscal year 2003. Also, our full implementation of EEOC's Federal Appeals Settlement Team (FAST) program reap rewards in more effective service in fiscal year 2003. Also, we will provide training to support both of these initiatives.

We implemented a system in November 2001 (fiscal year 2002) to collect federal sector EEO information from all federal agencies. The system provides internal automated editing checks to prevent agencies from entering incorrect data. This new web-based system supports EEOC's efforts to timely collect, analyze and publish the most accurate data from federal agencies. This system will continue to speed collection and publication of federal agency EEO data in fiscal year 2003.

For our own internal EEO process, we exceeded the 15% reduction goal in the average number of days to process internal EEO complaints in fiscal year 2000. However, in fiscal year 2001, we did not meet the goal. During fiscal year 2002, we are exploring ways to improve our internal EEO complaint process and reduce the processing times. To aid in meeting the measure, we plan to use mediation/ADR techniques and provide appropriate training to employees. We expect these initiatives to improve processing time for internal EEO cases in fiscal year 2003. We will complete all investigative reports within 180 days by the end of fiscal year 2003.

State and Local Program

We work with many state and local Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) and Native-American Tribal Employment Rights Organizations (TEROs) throughout the country to augment efforts to enforce employment discrimination statutes nationwide. EEOC's partnership with these agencies/organizations, through our work-sharing agreements and other activities, benefits both the employer and employee communities for several important reasons. We coordinate charges that are dual-filed under both state or local law and federal law; preventing the duplication of effort, coordinating enforcement efforts, streamlining the charge resolution process for both charging parties and respondents, consistently applying enforcement practices, and conserving resources. A charged respondent usually responds to only one agency, but has the opportunity to resolve both state or local and federal actions simultaneously.

In addition, we provide training on investigative and legal issues and conduct joint activities to benefit our mutual constituencies, such as outreach to provide education and technical assistance. We contract with our TERO partners to promote employment opportunity on Native American reservations.

Strategic Objective 1.3.

Promote coordination and enhance efficiency by strengthening partnerships with State and Local Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) and Native American Tribal Employment Rights Organizations (TEROs).

Measures for Strategic Objective

Program Highlights

Our strong partnerships with the many state and local FEPAs and TEROs have worked over the years to equally benefit employers and employees. Our work-sharing agreements, charge processing contracts and other activities allow us to coordinate charges dual-filed under state or local law and federal law. This arrangement prevents duplication of effort and streamlines the charge resolution process.

In fiscal year 2002, we will contract with 91 FEPAs to resolve dual-filed charges and 64 TEROs to promote equal employment opportunity on or near Native American reservations. We will continue our contractual and technical assistance efforts with the FEPAs and the TEROs in fiscal year 2003 to collaboratively work to advance equal employment opportunity nationwide.

STRATEGIC GOAL 2
Promote Equal Opportunity in Employment

Preventing employment discrimination from occurring in the workplace in the first place is preferable to remedying the consequences of the discrimination. A major component of EEOC's enforcement strategy is our outreach, education and technical assistance initiatives to assist employers, employees and stakeholder groups understand and prevent employment discrimination. We believe that discrimination can be averted if companies, federal agencies and individuals know their legal rights and responsibilities.

Our GPRA Strategic Plan establishes separate objectives and measures for employer and employee groups. Although employers and employees, and their respective stakeholders, attend many of our outreach, education and technical assistance events or benefit from our educational materials, we believe that it is important to focus on the unique issues and perspectives of each group with separate objectives and measures for Strategic Goal 2.

Outreach and Technical Assistance to Employers

Knowledge and understanding can lead to changed practices and behaviors in the workplace. The employer community is a key component of the equation for eradicating employment discrimination. Our strategy to prevent discrimination in the first place includes extensive outreach, education and technical assistance efforts to assist private sector and federal sector employers to voluntarily comply with the laws we enforce.

Strategic Objective 2.1.

Encourage and facilitate voluntary compliance with equal employment opportunity laws among employers and employer groups in the private and federal sectors.

Measures for Strategic Objective

Program Highlights

For fiscal year 2003, we will continue our outreach, education and technical assistance activities geared toward employers and employer groups in the private and federal sectors. [Many of these efforts will also serve employee and employee groups-see Strategic Objective 2.2 on page 27.] We expect these continued activities to encourage voluntary compliance with EEO laws.

Our Freedom to Compete Initiative will also focus on promoting fair and freecompetition in the workplace, without regard to race, gender, ethnicity or disability status. We will continue our nationwide series of informative roundtable discussions, joint corporate alliances, and recognition of best practices, as well as initiate other efforts to foster voluntary compliance.

In fiscal year 2003, we also plan to place an increased focus on developing a variety of training materials and programs available for use by private and federal employers to train their own staffs on EEO rights and responsibilities. We also plan to design and offer our first web-based training program and begin the development of an Internet-based technical assistance service that can stand alone or be a supplement to the web-based programs. Additionally, we plan to prepare a third volume in our EEOC Essential Guide Series, after assessing customer needs and concluding a marketing survey initiated in fiscal year 2002.

Outreach and Technical Assistance to Employees

We make extensive information available to private sector and federal sector employee communities to help educate them about their rights and assist them in the important steps they need to take to exercise those rights. The agency recognizes that employees, or applicants for employment, are valuable partners in the quest to eradicate employment discrimination. The private sector and federal sector employee communities require special attention with programs to ensure that we are able to reach this broad audience.

Strategic Objective 2.2.

Increase knowledge about individual rights under equal employment opportunity laws among the public and employee groups.

Measures for Strategic Objective

Program Highlights

In fiscal year 2003, we will continue to work with the employee community to inform and educate in our efforts to prevent employment discrimination, which is a priority for the Commission. To augment our ongoing outreach efforts which are designed to enhance the Commission's visibility and facilitate prevention of employment discrimination, other initiatives will be undertaken. One such initiative is the Freedom to Compete Initiative which focuses on promoting fair and free competition in the workplace.

In addition to conducting ongoing outreach initiatives and responding to requests for technical assistance and training, we also plan to respond to the growing need for expanded outreach efforts. Recent Supreme Court decisions, for example, have already created the need to inform our constituents about the impact of the Court's decisions, including the elimination of private-suit rights for damages against state and local governments. Also, there are many emerging issues, such as genetic discrimination, which have generated a need for expanded outreach and education. Finally, the Commission will continue to expand outreach efforts to address discrimination against members of the Arab, Muslim, Sikh, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities arising in the aftermath of the September 11^th terrorist attacks.

STRATEGIC GOAL 3
Enchance Agency Effectiveness to Achieve Our Misssion and Strategic Goals

In fiscal year 1997, when the Commission developed its first GPRA Strategic Plan, a separate strategic goal was established to heighten the importance of the initiatives of our executive direction and support functions. Our Strategic Goals- enforcement, prevention and agency effectiveness-send a powerful message that all three, working together, are necessary to accomplish our mission.

Staff Effectiveness

Our employees' skills and abilities are key to our successful enforcement of our statutory authorities. Since knowledge and technological requirements are quickly changing in our society, we must give our employees the necessary information and tools to do a quality job. Part of the President's Management Agenda emphasizes critical components of human resource management, because federal agencies are now facing challenges to retain current employees and recruit and select new employees. To address these areas, we have identified important areas in our GPRA measures to enhance staff effectiveness.

Strategic Objective 3.1.

Enhance staff capabilities and substantive knowledge to improve work processes and job functions through training, partnership, team-based approaches, and customer-based principles.

Measures for Strategic Objective

Program Highlights

Our employees must be trained to be prepared to meet the many new and different challenges facing them in the future. In fiscal year 2001, we identified critical skill gaps and training needs for our major occupational groups - administrative judges, attorneys, investigators, clericals, and managers/supervisors. As part of our training strategy, we will also implement technology-based learning approaches.

Also, in fiscal year 2003, we will focus on workforce restructuring activities and human capital issues; for example, hiring and retaining a well trained and qualified workforce; expanding the use of technology-based training; ensuring that the agency has a well-qualified pool of candidates to replace retiring Senior Executive Service and upper-level managers; ensuring that legally mandated training is provided in a timely manner and in accordance with statute; and ensuring that EEOC personnel are substantively prepared to support the agency's and the Administration's initiatives.

Policy Guidance and Technical Assistance

External policy guidance and technical assistance aids employers, employees, courts, and Congress in understanding the federal equal employment opportunity laws. These items provide valuable information about individual and employer rights and responsibilities and also encourage voluntary compliance with federal employment discrimination laws. In addition, courts carefully review Commission regulations and policy guidance to interpret employment discrimination law.

Internal guidance assists our employees in understanding federal equal employment opportunity laws and enables them to provide better customer service. Using the Commission's policies and internal guidance, our employees apply investigative and legal standards accurately, effectively and consistently nationwide. In addition, internal guidance and training establishes a model employer atmosphere at the EEOC. It is critical that the Commission adopt and implement internal programs and guidance that allow its own employees to work in an environment free of discrimination.

Strategic Objective 3.2.

Provide policy direction and guidance to achieve all Strategic Goals.

Measures for Strategic Objective

Program Highlights

In fiscal year 2003, the Commission will continue outreach efforts to support the Administration's New Freedom Initiative through outreach and education to small employers on the requirements of Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

As the civil rights agency with lead responsibility for enforcing federal EEO laws, EEOC continues to strive to be the model for other employers. Diversity training for our managers and supervisors is part of an on-going effort to prevent discrimination from occurring. Training and awareness are vital to our prevention efforts.

Also, the agency will begin implementing its restructuring plan developed in fiscal year 2002. The restructuring effort during fiscal year 2003 will streamline and improve agency processes and procedures and redesign the organization, including a de-layering of management and competitive sourcing of commercial activities.

Agency Infrastructure

Our third executive direction and support objective involves the agency's infrastructure - financial, human resource management, technology and administrative support systems. It is imperative that we have an effective and efficient finance system to account for resource expenditures and promptly pay for services. Also, we need a modern personnel system to help manage our workforce and strategically address human capital issues - an important reform initiative of the Administration and critical to the Commission's Restructuring Plan.

Strategic Objective 3.3.

Improve the agency's infrastructure.

Measures for Strategic Objective

Program Highlights

We will continue the implementation of our integrated information systems to better manage the Commission's corporate data and implementing e-government initiatives to improve public services and access to government information. In late fiscal year 2001 and early fiscal year 2002, EEOC implemented the core components of two new major information systems:

• The Integrated Financial Management System integrates the agency's core accounting system with budget, procurement, travel, and asset management. It also supports e-commerce activities such as electronic routing of contract documents, direct electronic communications with vendors, and direct entry of vendor profiles and other contract data through the Internet.
• The Federal Personnel and Payroll System integrates the agency's human resource and payroll data, and enables the development of a compensation model to provide better management of staff attrition rates and spending projections.
• Finally, we will continue developing, piloting and implementing additional features in our new Integrated Mission System (IMS). Our first phase of the IMS is consolidating the Commission's private sector charge intake, investigation, mediation, litigation, and outreach functions into a single system and providing automated management of federal sector hearings processes. Future phases will integrate the federal appeals process and expand IMS services to our state and local government Fair Employment Practice Agency (FEPA) partners.

These three systems are the core components of the new integrated information architecture for EEOC. In fiscal year 2003, we will continue to enhance these systems to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Commission's front-line programs.

Also, we will continue to make progress processing procurement actions and travel vouchers on time. These activities are important administrative functions supporting our front-line work. These activities must operate effectively and efficiently to meet our day-to-day needs.

In fiscal year 2002, we began moving our Revolving Fund closer to overall self-sufficiency. The Revolving Fund enables the EEOC to charge a fee for the costs associated with the delivery of specialized external education, technical assistance and training on the laws we enforce. Programs offered through the Revolving Fund augment those activities that are provided to the public free of charge. We will continue to move toward full self-sufficiency in fiscal year 2003.

VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION OF AGENCY INFORMATION

We have made significant progress in implementing our 5-year technology plan, which has been critical for improving our data collection and verification programs. Data accuracy and reliability are necessary for effective planning and resource allocation. Our major front-line programs in the private and federal sector require accurate enforcement data and financial and human resources information to assess our operations and our performance results.

During fiscal year 2002, we drafted guidelines to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information we disseminate to the public. These guidelines will be effective at the beginning of fiscal year 2003. Under the guidelines, we will strengthen our efforts to ensure the quality of our data throughout fiscal year 2003.

Over the past few years we have designed and implemented several important, new systems that will serve the purposes of providing better, more timely information and help us integrate the information to obtain a clearer picture of the organization. For example, during fiscal year 2002, and continuing into fiscal year 2003, we will upgrade two major information systems:

• In fiscal year 2002, the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) will integrate core accounting and budget modules. In fiscal year 2003, procurement, travel, and fixed asset modules will be added.
• We will pilot four subsystems of our Integrated Mission System (IMS) in the field offices. IMS consolidates the Commission's charge intake, investigation, mediation, litigation, hearings, and outreach functions into a single shared system. The four subsystems, designed to track data for the private and federal sector enforcement programs, will be fully implemented in fiscal year 2003.

These systems are the core components of an integrated information architecture for EEOC, in coordination with other data systems like our new personnel and payroll system, also implemented in fiscal year 2002. The deployment of these systems will allow the future integration of financial, program, and human resources data. Each system provides computerized edit routines to verify entered data. These routines are one way we ensure the validity of the information. We anticipate also using selective sampling and analysis of files to further ensure data validity.

Accurate, secure, and reliable information from these systems is critical for agency managers to make human and financial resource decisions. To meet our mission objectives, we need to continue investing in information technology.

PROGRAM EVALUATIONS

We conduct several evaluation activities to inform management of the effectiveness of the agency's programs. For example, we take the following steps to assess our outreach, education and technical assistance programs for employers, employees and stakeholder groups:

• Outreach results are reviewed and checked against plans at least quarterly, using data and reports submitted by field offices.
• GPRA outreach goals are compared to overall performance results to ensure progress and corrective action is taken, if warranted.
• Evaluation forms completed by participants are reviewed and evaluated to assess the results of fee-based training under the Revolving Fund.

The Commission also uses several evaluation approaches to guide its training programs and activities:

• Agency managers are surveyed to determine staff training needs and guide the agency's allocation of training resources.
• Different training methodologies used by EEOC offices are evaluated to assess whether training needs are being met and to identify creative approaches to share among offices.
• Computerized data systems are used to identify recurring employee developmental needs.
• Different tools are developed to assess how training initiatives help with the achievement of key program performance indicators.

Footnotes

1. EEOC, Commission or agency are used interchangeably throughout this Plan.

2. A one-time supplemental of $1.301 for Emergency Response and Recovery is excluded from this amount.

3. Excludes $14.7 million for EEOC's full share of the costs of the governmentwide proposal to accrue employee pension and annuitant heath benefits. The enactment of additional authorizing legislation is required.

4. Total workload is defined as pending inventory at the beginning of the fiscal year + receipts + net transfers.

5. Resolved charges include Merit Factor, No Cause, and Administrative closures.

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This page was last modified on August 6, 2002.