What Is Ofccp Compliance?
Author: Darwin Redshield
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is a division of the US Department of Labor that has been charged with implementing the laws that require equal employment opportunity for anyone working within the government contract system. As stated in the OFCCP mission statement, this would mean enforcing laws “that ban discrimination and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to take affirmative action to ensure that all individuals have an equal opportunity for employment, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability or status as a Vietnam era or special disabled veteran.”
That’s a pretty comprehensive law to enforce. Whether you are an employee seeking work or an employer looking to hire new staff, it’s important that you are aware of all the ramifications of the OFCCP compliance.
The first thing to keep in mind with OFCCP compliance is that it applies directly to any contractors or their subcontractors who have work with the federal government exceeding ten thousand dollars. Even if the company you work for has a contract going on in another division or even another state, you must still be in compliance. This also applies to financial institutions which do business with the government. However, this doesn’t mean that all the vendors and suppliers you might use during the course of your business needs an affirmative action program (AAP) but if you enter into contracts with these parties you will need to include an errors and omission (EO) clause in order to be in compliance and protect the interests of your business. The bottom line is that if your company or any part of your company that works with the government, you will be expected to be OFCCP compliant at all times.
Essentially, this means that you need to be up to date with the ethnicity of your employees and potential hires. Posing background questions on an application is completely acceptable. These questions should be for gender, race and ethnicity for any applicant. This is considered to be employee self-identification and is an approved method of collecting this information. In turn, this important information will be used in the contract approval process when you present a roster of employees to the government as part of your bid.
Part of the responsibilities of OFCCP compliance is monitoring. This could mean that representatives from the OFCCP will conduct periodic reviews of your workplace. These could consist of on-site or off-site reviews which will include inspection of employee records and possible interviews. OFCCP determines the contractors for monitoring based on incidents of systematic discrimination. In other words, they are primarily focused on businesses that has shown a pattern of discrimination as opposed to an isolated incident. However, any complaint registered by a current or former employee is given proper consideration and can lead to a complete review.
To make sure that your business is meeting the standards of the OFCCP you can obtain a copy of the Federal Compliance Contract Manual (FCCM) that provides all the guidelines for any contractor to self-audit themselves. By following the guidelines put fort in this booklet you should have no problem going forward. Also, getting a hold of a hiring software solution that possesses OFCCP compliance features will make your job of keeping the business within regulations far easier than manually tracking all the necessary data.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/what-is-ofccp-compliance-1826547.html
About the Author
Times are hard for the American currently. My goal is to start a conversation about how we can use eachother’s knowledge to better our lives and country. Now is the time for us to stand together, and the internet is the perfect vehicle for us to traverse this difficult path and emerge to a bright new era.
Related Links:
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)
http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/ofcpcomp.htm
