The US Government Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has revised the standards for the classification of federal data on race/ethnicity and job code classifications. Although the standards changed slightly in the early 1980s, this is the first significant revision to the EEO-1 reporting form since it was first issued in the mid-1960s. The two major changes affect:

• Job classifications
  
  
• Race classifications

The OMB recommends that organizations not begin collecting and maintaining this information until early 2007. The following describes the changes you must make to the job and race classifications for the 2007 filing.

Job Classifications

The first change affects the 01 officials and managers classification by adding two new EEO-1 job categories to the current list of nine classifications detailed in Table 1. When you’re finished, you will have 11 classifications.

Table T5UEE stores the EEO job categories. You assign job categories to jobs in SAP’s Organizational Management (OM) component in the expert mode view of jobs. To see it, go to transaction PO03 and enter the number of a valid job configured in your SAP system (e.g., 80000036). Select the US Job Attributes screen from the table. In my system, I follow menu path Settings>Country specific infotypes>For country US to view the US job attributes infotype listed on transaction PO03. If your system has multi-country configuration, the menu path differs.

The screen is similar to the one shown in Figure 1 with the EEO category as the first selection field. Your SAP organizational structure assigns an EEO job classification to each job.

Figure 1

EEO-1 report pulls the job category classification information for associates

For all companies currently filing EE0-1 in accordance with the OMB guidelines, the EEO job category table contains the entries in Table 1. Table 2 shows the changes to the current EEO-1 job category table.

The three changes involve new classifications (1.1, 1.2 and 1.3) that replace the 01 officials and managers category. You can find full descriptions of each of the job classifications at www.eeoc.gov/eeo1survey. These new classifications are executive/senior level officials and managers (including CEOs, CIOs, presidents, and directors), mid-level officials and managers (such as vice presidents, divisional controllers, and operations managers), and lower-level officials and managers (including product managers, branch managers, and customer service managers).

After reviewing the replacement classifications, you must perform four major tasks to properly configure this change in your SAP system:

1. Add the new job categories to the appropriate SAP table via the IMG

2. Ensure that you’ve assigned each valid job code in SAP to a valid EEO job category

3. Create a mapping from the old job categories to the new

4. Create and run an ABAP file that loads the new job code mappings for associates

Because there are only three job category changes, this should not be a huge task. For example, in my organization, I used our current job codes, in conjunction with our position titles and pay grades, to map out our existing EEO-1 job category 01 to the three new ones (1.1, 1.2, and 1.3). I created these changes along the lines of the following example:

If the current SAP Job Code = 80000036 [Vice President]

and the current EEO Job Category 01

and the Pay Scale Group (T510 on Infotype 8) is less than 500

then the Job Moves to a new classification of 1.2

This is a very detailed example to give you an idea of the various number of items that you can use to do your mapping. However, you could also base your mapping simply on SAP job codes as shown in this example:

If the current SAP Job Code = 80000050 [Senior Vice President/CEO]

then the Job Moves to a new classification of 1.1

Once I set up the mapping for all possible scenarios, I went to step number 2 and made sure each valid job code in my SAP system was configured to a valid EEO job category. Finally, I prepared a load file with each personnel number and its new job code (for those that changed). I ran an ABAP program that updated associates’ job code numbers and text on infotype 0001 and subsequently their US job attributes screen in Personnel Development (PD).

Race Classifications

Tables T505R (ethnic origin) and T505S (ethnic origin texts) in SAP store the race classifications. Race classifications are entered for an associate on infotype 0077 in the Ethnic origin field (Figure 2). For all companies currently filing EE0-1 in accordance with the OMB guidelines, the tables contain the five mutually exclusive categories shown in Table 3.

Figure 2

EEO-1 report pulls race information for associates from the data entered on their infotype 0077

Using the classification system I mentioned, which has not changed for more than 25 years, SAP tracked and reported ethnicity data exclusive of race. Associates did not have the opportunity to identify themselves in more than one race/ethnicity category, which prompted this change. According to the Federal Register Notice of November 28, 2005, the table should change to contain the seven values in Table 4.

Unlike the job category example, you cannot easily map from the old five values to this new table of seven values. Because of this, you are encouraged to collect this information anew from your associates. After reviewing the newly added categories, you must perform three major tasks to properly configure this change in your SAP system:

1. Add the new ethnicity and race classifications to the appropriate SAP table via the IMG

2. Prepare/design/execute a collection method to recapture the data

3. Update each associate in SAP’s infotype 0077 with the new race and ethnicity information

If you have an Employee Self-Service (ESS) application, collecting this information is easy. You could send out a mass communication to associates informing them of the governmental change and asking that they go to the ESS application and self-identify. If you have only Manager Self-Service (MSS), you can ask the associates to self-identify on a paper form and turn it in to their managers, who in turn can enter the information into the MSS application. Finally, those who need out-of-the-box solutions can build a quick HTML-based Web site where associates can provide their personnel number and identify their race/ethnicity. You could then feed it via a batch file into your SAP system.

The 2006 EEO-1 forms have to comply with the current classification system. This change, according to the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC), is not required until your 2007 reporting cycle. Many helpful Web sites exist to provide additional details, including the one I mentioned earlier. However, I warn you to be careful when reviewing information on the Web and when reviewing any old SAP notes (e.g., SAP note 435204) because some still contain the old, overruled 2003 proposed changes that do not have seven categories, but rather two sets of questions about race and ethnicity.

Danielle Larocca

Danielle Larocca is currently the Senior Vice President of Human Capital Management for EPI-USE Labs. Previously she was the Executive Vice President of Operations/Chief Knowledge Officer at a technology start-up. She has more than 20 years of strategic leadership experience in multi-national business, business process re-engineering, and project and people management. Danielle is an expert on SAP Human Resources (HR) and reporting and has authored four best-selling books on SAP. She is a regular speaker at numerous conferences around the world on topics such as HR, technology, change management, and leadership. She is an official SAP Mentor, a global designation assigned to less than 160 professionals worldwide, who serve as influential community participants in the SAP ecosystem. This group is nominated by the community and selected by the SAP Mentors’ Advisory Board to keep SAP relevant. Danielle also serves as an expert advisor for SAP Professional Journal.

You may contact the author at me@daniellelarocca.com.

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