Compliance with government agencies & regulations is not what you would prefer to focus your time and company resources on. But, non-compliance and failure to report accordingly can be more costly than you might imagine, as a review of recent fines and settlements shows. It is also resource draining to receive notice of an audit or review and realize that your organization has not been effectively keeping up with records of applicants relative to minority or veteran status, and the hires for these various groups, including the reasons for the hires.
So, how do you make certain that you are compliant? First, you need to know whether your organization must be compliant. Following are general requirements for employers who must comply:
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Compliance:
Who must comply?
Generally, any employer with 15 or more employees must comply with a variety of laws that fall under the jurisdiction of the EEOC, including those governing, equal pay, age discrimination, discrimination on the basis of disabilities and discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, religion or national origin.
What does compliance mean?
Generally, any employer subject to EEOC jurisdiction must take steps to ensure that employment practices are lawful, including the retention of records to prove compliance with applicable laws. Specifically, employers subject to EEOC jurisdiction with 100 or more employees must file an EEO-1 report annually.
Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs (OFCCP) Compliance:
Who must comply?
Generally, any organization that has a contract or contracts in an amount exceeding $ 10,000.00 directly with the Federal government, or state, county, municipal or local governments that have adopted OFCCP guidelines, or sells product or provides services to a federal contractor.
As an example, if your organization provides at least $ 10,000.00 in goods or services to the federal government, then it is subject to OFCCP compliance. If your organization provides goods or services to an organization that is a federal contractor, then it is subject to OFCCP compliance.
What does compliance mean?
Generally, the obligations vary depending upon the amount of the contract(s) and the number of employees in your organization. At a minimum, your organization must meet certain requirements for record retention pertaining to employee selection procedures, including the number of persons hired, promoted and terminated for each job, by sex, and where appropriate by race and national origin; (b) the number of applicants for hire and promotion by sex and where appropriate by race and national origin; and (c) the selection process utilized (either standardized or not standardized).
Should a notice of impending review or audit show up, be prepared for substantial costs in terms of man hours to retrieve the records, often two years worth, needed to comply with the request. And these costs assume you are not facing a fine and contract cancellation due to non-compliance. This is one time you should be in control so that you are not caught unprepared.
If you are not sure you are in control of your compliance matters, we suggest the following:
1. Review www.ofcccomply.com and www.eeoccomply.com to determine your compliance requirements, or contact us and we will refer you to consulting firms that specialize in compliance.
2. If your review of your compliance requirements reveals that you need an affirmative action plan, we will be glad to refer you to consultants who specialize in developing affirmative action plans for employers that must be in compliance.
3. Contact CRI to discuss how an online Employment Center attached to your primary website can allow you to open up the applicant attraction net to gather more jobseekers through the job postings required for OFCCP compliance. In addition to increased applicant flow, the Employment Center will:
· Obtain Affirmative Action and Veteran status data you need · Maintain the required data necessary to meet reporting requirements · Differentiate jobseekers from applicants based on job specific qualifications and retain the data showing who qualified and who did not and why · Attract better quality candidates allowing you to make better hires Recently, a former OFCCP auditor and compliance officer with 27 years of experience recently reviewed the online Employment Center and offered the following feedback:
1. The Online Employment Center facilitates an employer’s ability to broaden the applicant attraction effort while objectively screening job seekers through each step of recruitment and recording the data for use in analysis of the overall employee selection process.
2. When an employer chooses appropriate prescreening questions for use with an online Employment Center, applicants that meet the minimum job qualifications are objectively differentiated from job seekers who do not possess the minimum qualifications for the job.
3. Collection of Affirmative Action data from applicants is handled appropriately in that applicants may decline to provide data. However, if an applicant that previously declined to provide data is hired, the system allows the collection of the data manually either as provided by the applicant or through an assessment by the employer.
4. The Employment Center provides the data required for EEOC reviews, audits and filings, as well as data analysis for OFCCP filings, reviews and audits.
5. The CRI Online Employment Center surpasses any other system in the marketplace. It reduces the potential for bias in the selection process and provides an easy system for gathering the data needed for reporting and audits.
6. The 57,000 employers who are federal contractors need a system like the Online Employment Center for online screening, data retention, analysis and reporting.
There are other services available, such as job boards, which offer increased applicant flow while qualifying candidates. Job boards such as Monster.com, Career Builder, Brass Ring and others provide a valuable service in assisting organizations attract applicants. They also provide the ability to qualify candidates. However, they cannot truly differentiate jobseekers from applicants on the basis of your specific criteria. And this ability to differentiate jobseekers from applicants is critical when performing analysis and reporting for compliance.
Further, these job boards do not collect and retain the data on minority and veteran status required for reporting. Nor do they automate the entire application process and maintain the records for all applicants, for all jobs and all hiring decisions in your organization. The online Employment Center provides all these features and the data you need to be compliant.
You should be an educated decision maker in guiding your organization to be a responsible employer and to take the steps necessary to insure that your organization is not vulnerable on compliance issues. If you need assistance in determining whether your organization must be compliant or how the Employment Center can ease your compliance burden, please contact CRI:
Milt Cotter Candidate Resources, Inc (800) 328-1940, ext. 199
To learn more about this author, visit Milton S. Cotter's Website.
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