U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commissions Evolution Towards Human Capital Management in the Retail Industry

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commissions Evolution Towards Human Capital Management in the Retail Industry

In the beginning, corporations continue to violate federal laws and regulations established more than fifty years ago. Incidentally, the majority of corporate violations of the law continue to be the work of smaller number of corporations established more than twenty years ago; however, a corporation's human capital management predicts trouble with federal law. As a human resource professional, management needs to finalize its human capital plan and ensure that it is linked to the EEOC's Agency's strategic plan and annual performance goals.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, (EEOC), is a federal agency that was created in 1965 to enforce federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin ("Overview," 2011, para. 1). Since then, discrimination due to age and disability has also been added to the law. In 1972, the EEOC was given the power of litigation and has been taking violating corporations to court since then ("Overview," 2011, para.1). The EEOC holds the employers accountable for such acts and files suits against corporations when accusations from employees arise.

To begin with, human capital management issues seem to impact the retail industry when they do not abide by EEOC guidelines. Corporations' efforts to develop, communicate and implement a strategic human capital plan are still incomplete. The human resource management team must be on a mission of promoting equality of opportunity in the workplace while providing high quality, professional communication in the work place to avoid any regulations problems. Additionally, the corporations' must be able to work with the EEOC Agency while transitioning of properly hiring and training of a potential employee or existing employee.

Finally, the human resource professional must take steps now to ensure that leadership exists within the current workforce that is equipped with the skills, knowledge, and abilities necessary to ensure that leaders are available to lead the management, supervisors, and employees in meetings to meet their company's strategic goals in the future. Additionally, steps must be taken to link the company's succession planning efforts with the corporation's strategic plan and to integrate succession planning into the budgetary planning process.

The four retail industries that will be analyzing the relationship between human capital management and federal labor law are Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, and Disney. For the time being, Disney is known as a powerful retailer all around world. The Walt Disney store makes billions of dollars because they outsource their human capital ("Whitsle," 1999, para. 1). For instance, they can pay an employee $3995 a year over seas as in the United States, the human resource professional would have to triple that salary ("Whitsle," 1999, para. 1). Another reason The Walt Disney Store outsources, they get to avoid federal regulations and pocket the profits ("Whitsle," 1999, para. 1).

Next, Wal-Mart is known as a powerful retailer around the globe. According to "Wal-Mart or World-Mart? A Teaching Case Study," Wal-Mart had to adjust the way they managed their human capital (Jacques, 2003, para. 1). With this in mind, Sam Walton had the policy, "To invite your associates to share their own suggestions regarding company policy and practices and to make them feel that their contributions are important and that they are listened to (Jacques, 2003, section 4, para. 4). In fact, the New York Times has uncovered evidence that Wal-Marts in as many as eighteen states have gone to the extreme measures of forcing workers to work off the clock for hours at a time (Jacques, 2003, section 4, para. 4-5). The report notes that managers have deleted worked hours from time cards (Jacques, 2003, section 4, para. 5). Managers have also told workers to start work without punching in or to punch out and continue working (Jacques, 2003, section 4, para. 5-6). Some workers in California, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington even reported being locked in the store after they had clocked out as a measure to keep them cleaning and doing other work off of the payroll to keep labor costs low (Jacques, 2003, section 4, para. 5-6). The report noted that workers complied out of a fear of being fired (Jacques, 2003 section 4, para. 5-6).

As soon as U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions (EEOC) received complaints from four female associates, a federal court judge stated that federal legislation