New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer took credit this week for nearly 40 S&P 100 companies that have begun or committed to publicly disclose EEO-1 Report diversity data. The statement followed the Comptroller’s July letter to 67 CEOs of large companies that made statements in support of Black Lives Matter calling on them to “put real force” behind their commitments by disclosing this data in conjunction with their next EEOC submission in 2021.
“The Consolidated EEO-1 Report is the “gold standard” for diversity disclosure,” the Comptroller’s office said in a statement Monday. Although the EEO-1 disclosure is standardized and readily available, some investors such as BlackRock (who also appeared on the Comptroller’s list of companies) advocate the use of different formats such as the SASB standard to provide information about diversity representation. In addition, some companies have noted that the outdated job categories of the EEO-1 do not reflect their organizational structure – a concern the Comptroller’s statement dismissed with the exhortation to provide additional disclosure explaining the differences.
Pressure intensifies: According to the statement (and in line with data previously released by JUST Capital), only 29 public companies had made their EEO-1 Report available to investors and the general public prior to the July letter. With the addition of the 34 companies that have committed to disclose this information, the total number of companies would rise to 63, with 48 of those in the S&P 100—nearly half the index. This may in turn increase pressure on the other companies to do so as well, creating a de facto benchmark for investors to use to compare companies within an industry or across industries.
Pay data requests may follow: Although the Comptroller’s letter did not request any companies to disclose pay data (such as would be found in the currently paused EEO-1 Component 2 pay data report), the likelihood is that at some point this data will be requested in the name of transparency and equity. Indeed, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill (SB 973) that will require employers in the state with more than 100 employees to begin submitting EEOC Component 2-style pay data effective January of next year.