As organizations prepare for 2013, they should expect to see more aggressive approaches from the Obama administration regarding employer issues, says Nita Beecher, talent principal of Mercer, a human resources consulting firm. While Congress remains divided, Beecher believes the Obama administration will rely on regulatory agencies, such as National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor, to carry out his agenda as he did during his first term.

Pay equity is likely to be one of the top employer issues that the Obama administration will tackle, Beecher says. Guided by the EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, employers could face many more audits by the Outreach and Compliance Coordination Program, which has new tools at its disposal to conduct these audits.

"The OCCP and EEOC now have new tools to collect individualized data in their investigations, and I think you're going to see a lot more of that," Beecher says. "Therefore, we believe employers need to continue to look and audit more often than once a year their pay to ensure they're compliant with both gender issues as well as race issues and ethnic issues. Traditionally, that's where you see the dichotomy."