The EEOC has released a draft Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2026–2030 for public comment. The plan establishes the agency’s enforcement, outreach, and operational priorities for the next four fiscal years and provides insight into how the EEOC intends to allocate resources, measure performance, and pursue its mission of preventing and remedying unlawful employment discrimination. The Commission stated that the plan is guided by principles of equal employment opportunity, accountability, and integrity, and emphasizes “even-handed” and merit-based enforcement of federal employment discrimination laws.
Key Provisions
The draft plan retains three overarching strategic goals:
- Combat and prevent employment discrimination through the EEOC’s enforcement authority;
- Prevent discrimination and advance equal employment opportunity through outreach and training; and
- Improve organizational effectiveness through workforce development, technology enhancements, and operational improvements.
Continued Focus on Enforcement Outcomes
The EEOC’s primary enforcement objective is to obtain meaningful relief for individuals affected by discrimination while improving workplace practices to prevent future violations. The agency plans to continue prioritizing systemic discrimination matters, like cases involving alleged discriminatory policies or practices that affect multiple workers, locations, or industries.
Among its performance goals, the EEOC intends to:
- Ensure that 97% of conciliation agreements and favorable litigation resolutions include targeted equitable relief, such as policy revisions, training, monitoring, or other corrective measures;
- Favorably resolve at least 90% of enforcement lawsuits annually through FY 2030;
- Obtain targeted equitable relief and at least $1 million in monetary relief in 80% of systemic investigations where the agency finds reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred; and
- Enhance monitoring of conciliation agreements to improve employer compliance with negotiated corrective actions.
The agency specifically emphasized that systemic enforcement remains a key component of its strategy and noted its longstanding focus on identifying and addressing employment practices with broad workplace impact.
Modernization of Intake and Charge Processing
The draft plan includes several initiatives intended to improve access to the EEOC’s services. The agency plans to continue developing technology-driven enhancements to its intake system, reduce pending intake inventories by 2% annually through FY 2030, and improve processing times for intake inquiries. The EEOC also intends to expand accessibility for charging parties, employers, and representatives through digital tools and process improvements.
Increased Employer Outreach and Training
The EEOC plans to expand outreach efforts aimed at employers, staffing agencies, labor organizations, and federal agencies. The plan calls for increasing partnerships, broadening training efforts, developing updated compliance resources, and creating new user-friendly educational materials regarding workplace discrimination laws.
The agency also intends to expand awareness of its enforcement activities and continue providing technical assistance designed to help employers prevent discrimination and remedy problematic workplace practices before violations occur.
Federal Agency Oversight
The draft plan includes new performance measures focused on federal agency compliance with equal employment opportunity requirements. Beginning in FY 2026, the EEOC plans to establish baseline measurements addressing complaint-processing timeliness, disability affirmative action program compliance, and EEO program independence within cabinet-level agencies, with annual improvement targets through FY 2030.
Covered Employers
The EEOC’s draft Strategic Plan does not change employer coverage requirements. The plan applies to the EEOC’s enforcement and administrative activities under existing federal equal employment opportunity laws. Generally, these laws apply to employers with 15 or more employees (Title VII, the ADA, the PWFA, and GINA), although the ADEA applies to employers with 20 or more employees and the Equal Pay Act has no minimum employee threshold.
Employer Impact
While the draft Strategic Plan does not impose new legal obligations on employers, it provides valuable insight into the EEOC’s anticipated enforcement priorities through 2030. Several themes are particularly noteworthy for employers.
First, the EEOC continues to view systemic discrimination enforcement as a significant priority. The agency’s performance measures focus heavily on obtaining broad workplace remedies and substantial monetary recoveries in systemic matters, suggesting continued attention to employer policies and practices that may affect groups of employees rather than only individual claims.
Second, employers may see enhanced EEOC intake capabilities and improved charge-processing systems as the agency modernizes its technology infrastructure and works to increase access to charge-filing processes.
Third, the agency’s emphasis on outreach, technical assistance, and updated educational resources may create additional opportunities for employers to proactively review employment practices and better understand EEOC expectations regarding compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws.
Finally, the plan’s repeated focus on accountability, consistency, quality investigations, high litigation success rates, and enforcement aligned with the agency’s National Enforcement Plan suggests the EEOC intends to concentrate resources on matters it views as having significant legal or workplace impact.
Next Steps
The EEOC is accepting public comments on the draft Strategic Plan through July 19, 2026. Following the comment period, the Commission will review feedback and consider the plan for final approval. Once finalized, the plan will guide the agency’s enforcement, outreach, and operational activities through fiscal year 2030.
Why It Matters
The EEOC’s Strategic Plan serves as a roadmap for how the agency intends to enforce federal employment discrimination laws. Although it does not create new compliance requirements, the draft plan signals continued emphasis on systemic enforcement, workplace remedies beyond monetary relief, modernization of charge-processing systems, and expanded employer outreach. Employers should monitor developments as the final plan is adopted and consider reviewing anti-discrimination policies, complaint procedures, accommodation practices, and workforce training programs to ensure ongoing compliance with federal equal employment opportunity requirements.