You just took the first step in vindicating your rights and fighting back by filing your Fayetteville, North Carolina, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge. But, now what?
First, register with the EEOC
After you file your charge, register with the EEOC Public Portal. You will need to create a user name and password, and once you are registered, your complaint will automatically load. This online portal allows you to submit all of your proof, any substantiating paperwork and postfiling documents, like position statements, responses, etc.
The first notification
Before the end of 10 days after you filed the Fayetteville, North Carolina, charge, your employer will receive an EEOC filing notice. This will be a request to file a response with the EEOC, and you will have a chance to respond to that employer’s response. The timeline for that response is usually 20 days.
Mediation
During that initial response from the EEOC, the investigator will typically offer you and your employer mediation services. The EEOC Mediation Process is conducted by an EEOC-trained, neutral, third-party mediator. Their job is not to pass judgment or make findings. Their job is to facilitate a settlement. It is a free, confidential and voluntary process, so for most cases, mediation is worth a shot.
Preliminary investigation
Before initiating the investigation, the EEOC investigator will analyze the Fayetteville, North Carolina, claims made to ensure both a legally recognizable and time. This means they will check that your claims are against a law that the EEOC enforces and that they are not barred by any statute of limitations, i.e., that you filed it within the statutorily required time limit.
The investigation
After the EEOC investigator determines that the case is timely filed based on EEOC enforcement law, they will initiate the discrimination investigation. The general timeline is about 10 months, and depending on the nature of the case, the investigator may physically go to your Fayetteville, North Carolina, workplace to conduct interviews, search for evidence, gather documents, etc. However, recently, they have tried to do as much as possible remotely.