Roadshows bolster employment equity

© Edhar Yuralaits – 123RF.com

In Limpopo, the EE workshop will be held at Fusion Boutique, 4 Schoeman Street, Limpopo. In the Free State, it will be held at Sun Windmill, corner N1 Highway and Jan Pierrewiet Avenue in Bloemfontein.

The Department of Labour started the roadshows on 15 August 2015 in Mbombela (Nelspruit), Mpumalanga Province with the aim to create awareness on compliance with the Employment Equity Act.

The EE roadshows are held under the theme, ‘Transformation - makes business sense’.

The objectives of the stakeholder workshops are to:

• Publicise the department’s Code of Good Practice on Employment of Persons with Disabilities;
  
• Gather public comment on the Draft Amended Code of Good Practice on the preparation of EE Plans;
  
• Publicise the 2016 EE Online Reporting;
  
• Publicise the 16th Annual Report and the 2015 EE Public Register
  
• Present current Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) cases on Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value.

The EE workshops are open to human resource executives and practitioners, assigned senior EE managers/transformation managers, EE Forum members, academics and trade unions and employees.

Employers (companies, government departments etc.) are, as per the EE Act, obliged to submit their employment equity reports annually to the department in regard to demographic profiles, gender representation and EE plans on how to address discrimination and inequity in the workplace.

Since the enactment of the Employment Equity Amendment Act on 1 August 2014, all designated employers as well as those who reports voluntarily are required to report annually in terms of Section 21.

The other upcoming EE roadshows sessions will be held as follows:

• 29 August 2016 – Southern Sun, 45 New England Road, Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal
  
• 30 August 2016 – Olive Convention, 18 Somtseu Road, Durban in KwaZulu-Natal

Venues for the rest of the roadshows will be confirmed in due course. The EE national roadshows presentations starts at 9am - 2pm.

Meanwhile, the EE online and manual reporting season opens on 1 September 2016.