Employers May Find Young Workers More Savvy About the Law Due to EEOC's Youth@Work Initiative

[author: Beth P. Zoller, XpertHR Legal Editor]

Employers that hire students, teenagers and other younger workers may soon face a workforce that is more educated and knowledgeable about their legal rights. As part of the Youth@Work initiative, the EEOC released new tools and materials aimed at training younger workers about employee rights and responsibilities and discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

The Youth@Work initiative was developed in 2004 and is a "national education and outreach campaign to promote equal employment opportunity for America's next generation of workers." The newly released video and classroom guides will help younger workers identify workplace discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex, disability and other protected classes as well as provide guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable workplace conduct. The video also suggests strategies that younger workers can use to respond to and prevent unlawful discrimination and harassment. The tools are free to the public and available at Youth@Work.