After delaying the opening of the 2019 EEO-1 Component 1 Data Collection on May 8, 2020, in light of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today that the 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection will open on Monday, April 26, 2021.
Continue reading at: EEOC website
On February 13, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued Directive 2019-04 which establishes a framework for the Voluntary Enterprise-wide Review Program (VERP). Under this new program, OFCCP will work with “high-performing” contractors to achieve sustained, corporate-wide compliance with the laws and regulations OFCCP administers and enforces requiring nondiscrimination and equal employment opportunity.
Notably, participating contractors are removed from the pool of contractors scheduled for compliance evaluations.
Contractors can apply to the program beginning in fiscal year 2020. As part of the application, OFCCP will conduct compliance reviews of the contractor’s headquarters location as well as a sample or subset of establishments.
Contractors must meet established criteria verifying basic compliance with OFCCP’s requirements and must further demonstrate their commitment to and application of successful equal employment opportunity programs on a corporate-wide basis.
Keep reading this article at: https://governmentcontractsnavigator.com/2019/02/20/ofccps-new-voluntary-program-exempts-high-performing-contractors-from-compliance-evaluations
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) has announced that it has launched a new resource for federal government contractors called the “Contracting Officer Corner.”
OFCCP touts the new website as constituting “a central repository of resources, including a new pre-award process guide and downloadable workplace posters, for both federal agency contracting officials and federal contractors.”
The aim of the website is to “assist and ensur[e] that federal contractors meet their equal employment opportunity obligations,” and to “enhance compliance assistance.”
Keep reading this article at: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/ofccp-launches-new-resource-contractors
If your company was one of the 375 government contractors or subcontractors who recently received a Scheduling Letter from the Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs (OFCCP), you’re probably not reading this post. You’re too busy scrambling to pull together responses to the 22 items in the Scheduling Letter and Itemized Listing and making sure your affirmative action plans are up to date.
But if you didn’t receive a scheduling order … read on.
Now is a perfect time to check up on your company’s compliance with the various requirements imposed on federal contractors and subcontractors, so that you’re ready when you do receive notice of an OFCCP audit. Every contractor knows that it must maintain affirmative action plans for minorities and women and for the disabled and protected veterans and that it must file EEO-1 and VETS-4212 forms once a year. But are you confident that you’re complying with all the other OFCCP obligations on federal contractors? Here is a quick checklist you can use to make sure your company is in compliance.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=586128
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has filed a lawsuit to require Convergys Customer Management Group Inc. to submit documents detailing its affirmative action plans for company facilities in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee.
Filed with the department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges, the suit requires Convergys to provide the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) with all documents and information requested, cooperate with scheduled compliance reviews and fully comply with the requirements of all laws enforced by the agency.
If the company fails to comply, the department seeks to cancel the company’s current federal contracts and ban Convergys from future federal contracting.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2015/12/15/convergys-sued-shunning-employment-probe/77371696/
Every year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission releases its annual report, informing the president and Congress of the state of equal-employment opportunity in the federal workforce. But critics say the annual report serves one other purpose: It magnifies what is currently wrong with the federal government’s EEO system.
The recently released 2009 report reveals a stunning lack of compliance, commitment and accountability by a number of agencies and agency leadership—especially when compared with the best practices being employed by The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®.
Consider this sampling of numbers from EEOC’s latest 2009 report:
So what happens to the 21 percent of agencies that do not submit MD-715 reports? Or the 39 percent of agency heads who did not issue written policy statements? Or the 26 percent of agencies that don’t have an EEO director reporting directly to the top person at a department?
“There is absolutely no accountability for those agencies who do not wish to comply with the regulations,” says Carol Dawson, president of EEO Guidance, a national consulting and training company based in Jeffersonville, Ind. “There is nobody doing anything about the percent that is not in compliance; there are no consequences whatsoever.”
In March, DiversityInc released the findings of its second annual DiversityInc Top Federal Agencies for Diversity list in Washington, D.C. The findings demonstrated that while participating federal agencies have made strides in ensuring that their workforces reflect the changing needs and faces of their constituents, they lagged far behind the DiversityInc Top 50 in a number of key areas of diversity management and representation, including:
DiversityInc will follow up with federal agencies on Nov. 9 with a program entitled “The Next Steps to Effective Diversity Management.” Expected speakers include John Robinson, chief diversity officer of the State Department, Cari Dominguez, former head of the EEOC, and chief diversity officers of several DiversityInc Top 50 companies. For information on this diversity event, click here.
Dawson worked at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance for 25 years, the agency responsible for ensuring that private-sector employers doing business with the federal government—specifically, all federal contractors that employ 50 or more employees and have government contracts of $50,000 or more—comply with the EEO laws and regulations requiring nondiscrimination.
She said the federal government does not tolerate the same kind of behavior within the private sector that it allows in its own ranks. “In private industry, we take them to court. We take their federal contracts away. We put their names out there. We make them miserable. They will suffer greatly if they are not in compliance with far stricter EEO laws,” Dawson says.
But while EEOC is charged with monitoring federal-agency compliance with EEO laws, it does not have the funds or the manpower to monitor what is arguably the largest employer in the United States—the federal government, she said.
Dawson likens the current system to a fox-watching-the-hen-house scenario. Unlike the private sector, federal agencies themselves are responsible for their own internal EEO compliance and for processing and investigating charges of discrimination filed against them by their own employees.
“Until the federal government removes internal compliance and enforcement from the agencies and places it in neutral hands [EEOC], nothing will change,” Dawson says. “The federal agencies must be held accountable, or there is no real need for the EEO regulations.”
Dexter Brooks, the director of federal-sector programs at the EEOC, acknowledges that lack of compliance with EEO guidance and mandates is a problem at a number of federal agencies and departments. “What is our enforcement mechanism? We issue this report to the president and Congress every year stating which agencies are in compliance because they actually control the agencies’ budgets and the way in which they are lead. So that is one way in which we try to seek compliance,” he says. “Actually, it’s the primary way right now because we don’t have sanctioning authority.”
Brooks says the only time the EEOC can issue binding orders to an agency or department is when a deficiency manifests itself into an actual employee complaint.
He says the EEOC has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to “slightly strengthen” the way the EEOC enforces its mandates. “This is not something we take lightly,” he says. “We are trying to get a full understanding of how far we can go to achieve compliance in federal agencies.”
Brooks says when the EEOC finds an agency or department failing to comply with a particular mandate or directive, “we note it as a deficiency and we give feedback to the EEO program and the agency head noting what we find as deficiencies.”
In its annual report, the EEOC also submits “tips” on how to have a more effective EEO program in the federal government. Brooks says another compliance mechanism is the actual complaint process, which he says is more reactive. “Employees who believe they have not received equal opportunities can file complaints of discrimination,” he adds. “We are trying to get agencies to do the proactive work before they see us on the reactive side, which is the complaint side.”
In fact, federal employees are filing more complaints alleging employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability and reprisal. Federal employees filed 16,947 discrimination complaints in fiscal year 2009, 195 more than in 2008, according to a new EEOC report. The increase is smaller than the previous year’s increase: In 2008, there were 584 more discrimination complaints than in 2007.
The rise in 2009 over the previous year is not big, but it is significant because it represents the second year of an increase, reversing what has been a decade of steady declines. “We are watching this trend,” Brooks says.
Asked whether the rise in complaints could be related to the number of agencies and departments that are not complying with EEO guidance mandates, Brooks says he is not sure but “logically, it needs to be explored.”
“It makes sense that if you are not in compliance, you might have higher complaints,” he says. “That makes a lot of sense and it’s something we are going to be studying and tracking.”
Key Findings From the EEOC Report
— By Sam Ali – Aug 27, 2010 – Diversity Inc. – http://diversityinc.com/article/8013/No-Accountability-21-of-Federal-Agencies-Dont-Submit-EEO-Reports/
Many private companies and federal contractors and subcontractors are subject to federal reporting requirements involving employment data. The deadline to file federal EEO-1 and VETS-100/100A forms is September 30, 2010. Here are the details on the requirements, including who is covered, and what must be done.
What is an EEO-1 Form?
The EEO-1 form is an annual report that categorizes employees based on ethnicity, race and gender, as well as by job category. The EEO-1 form uses data from any pay period in July, August or September of the filing year.
What is the VETS-100 Form?
The VETS-100 and VETS-100A forms are annual reports that track the employment and hiring of former military service members by job category and type of veteran, and use data from any pay period in July or August of the filing year. Additionally, the VETS-100 and VETS-100A forms contain a 12-month summary of information, dating back 12 months from the specific pay period selected.
Why are these forms important?
In addition to the legal requirement that they be completed, the forms are used by government agencies, such as the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”), to help select compliance evaluation targets and track employment patterns, and are used by plaintiffs in lawsuits. Thus, accuracy and timeliness in completing the forms is critical.
How do I get the employee information to prepare the forms?
The government recommends that employers request that applicants/employees voluntarily self-identify as to their racial/ethnic status. Federal contractors are required to request applicants to self-identify voluntarily concerning their veteran status.
Who must file the EEO-1 report?
Who must file the VETS-100/100A reports?
Certain federal government contractors and subcontractors are subject to the VETS-100/100A filing requirements.
How Do the Reports Cover Multiple Facilities?
A single-establishment employer must submit one EEO-1 and one VETS-100/100A report. Multi-establishment employers must submit multiple reports, which can be accomplished in a few different ways depending on the number of employees at each separate facility.
Where Do I Obtain More Information?
For more information about EEO-1 reporting, visit the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s website at http://www.eeoc.gov/employers/eeo1survey/faq.cfm.
For more information about VETS-100 reporting, visit the U.S. Dept. of Labor wbsite at http://www.dol.gov/vets/programs/fcp/main.htm.
