NEW YORK—As the administration of President-elect Donald Trump begins to formulate its plans, employers are cautiously watching how changes to the tax code and Affordable Care Act (ACA), among other changes, could impact them in 2017.

But one change that is already on tap for 2017 dates back to early 2016, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced proposed changes to the data collected in EEO-1 reports filed by employers with more than 100 employees. The new reports must be submitted by March 1, 2018, and will include 2017 employee data.

Under a proposal EEOC first announced in February 2016, employers with 100 or more employees will be required this year to report pay and hours based on their employees' race and gender. (In the past, race and gender were not linked to the hours-worked data.) The new rule institutes a change to the EEO-1 that includes this new reporting category.

The revision is viewed as an effort by the federal government to address the issue of equal pay for all workers. According to EEOC, certain employers have reported annually on the EEO-1 form the number of individuals they employ by race, ethnicity and sex, by job category, since 1966. “Under the [new regulation], employers with 100 or more employees would add information on aggregate pay ranges and hours worked to the information collected, beginning with the September 2017 report,” EEOC noted.

"More than 50 years after pay discrimination became illegal, it remains a persistent problem for too many Americans," EEOC chairwoman Jenny R. Yang said following a public hearing on the proposal in early 2016. “The lack of data has been a significant barrier to tackling unfair pay. This proposal is intended to provide the data that is needed to better understand where potential pay problems exist, so that we can strengthen our enforcement efforts and employers can work proactively to address them." For additional background information on the new EEO-1 report, visit the EEOC website here.

In a commentary on the new regulation, the labor and employment law firm Fisher Phillips said it believes the goal of the EEOC with this new regulation is to collect data that will help the commission “identify businesses that may have pay gaps, and then target those employers who are discriminating on the account of gender—and possibly race or ethnicity—through enforcement actions.”

The firm, in a post on its website, advised employers affected by the change to review their pay practices, identify and address any areas of pay disparity.

“You should conduct a gender-specific internal audit, and possibly a race and ethnicity audit, to gain an understanding of your pay practices and have the opportunity to correct pay disparities before the formal reporting period,” the firm said. “You should also review compensation policies to ensure that a gender bias does not persist.”