It’s EEO-1 time again. The notices just came from the government that we have until the end of September to report the gender, ethnicity and nationality of our employees back to them. I can tell you that the practice of classifying and reporting your employees has always left me a bit agitated. It’s not so much the fact that we have to do it but rather how it’s done.

“Are you Latino? Ever been? Are you sure? Can you check? We’ll wait. Look, just call your grandmother and ask — this is very important. What do we consider Latino? Well anything south of the US. Sorry, Spain is not Latino. You’re not? Ok, we can come back to that if you change your mind. Now then, where do you come from? No, not Charlotte. Where do your people come from? We have a rather complicated chart so just think it over carefully. We’ve gone way beyond Caucasian and African American. Sorry to be forward but are you, you know, mixed? You know, do you come from two or more different (by our charts) regional locations? We tried to take into account all of the possibilities so just pick one that fits the best. Why do we need to know? Well we are the government. We have our reasons.”

The government doesn’t seem to trust us to find out anymore. Within the last ten years we’ve been handed the self-identification form to have people fill out. I always feel a bit slimy and apologetic when asking new employees to fill out the form. “The government asks us to collect this data. Strictly optional you know. If you don’t fill it out though I’m going to have to perform a visual assessment and really try to, well, guess at what you are.”  I can honestly say that, since the form came out, only one or two people have refused (in a polite way) to complete the form. I remember those times as almost feeling a bit refreshed when they did. “Good for you. That’s the way to stick it to them.” I then had to check the box when entering their information into the database. I don’t like to label people and checking non-work related boxes in the system does not make me feel good. I once had a supervisor come out to me. She had made the decision and was coming out to everyone and proudly sat in my office and let me know that she was a lesbian. We sat looking at each other for a moment and I said thanks. She asked if I needed to check a box or note that in her file anywhere. I let her know that I was happy that she was letting everyone know but that we didn’t have a box for lesbian in our system. Now if you become Latino then we should talk.

It has always puzzled me about how the US has tackled this when so many other countries don’t even give it a thought. I’ve hired people in the UK, Europe, Asia, and Mexico. Nowhere did I find a form asking me to indicate whether you are Latino or not. I always wondered how you would discern who is Latino in China or Europe? The only thing worse is explaining the process to fellow HR professionals from other countries. It’s like trying to explain to your friends about your strange Uncle Pete sitting in the corner when they would come over to the house.

Now, I’m educated enough to know there are reasons the government asks for the data. Funding, statistics, demographics are all fine reasons, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble of making HR professionals ask the questions or the employees go through the embarrassment of trying to figure out which column they fit into. Do that yourself. Send a survey but don’t make me ask for you. Leave me to ask things like: “Can you do the job?” Yes. Good. “Are you legal to work in this country?” Yes. Good. These are questions I can get behind. Please don’t ask me to label people and put them into simple boxes. At least not until I get to know them better.