OFCCP compliance – What you need to know.

Turborecruit Corporate

All RecruitAdvantage recruitment software processes are OFCCP-compliant. Why does this matter?

What does OFCCP Stand For?

OFCCP refers to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which is part of the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration. The agency monitors federal contractors to make sure they take affirmative action to ensure equal employment opportunities are provided for employees without regard to race, gender, colour, religion, national origin, or disability.

Do you Need to Comply?

The need to comply is defined around US operations and federal contracts. The US Government has legislated to enforce that contractors and subcontractors with:

  A federal contract of a particular size ($25,000 to $100,000 depending on certain date thresholds)

  50 or more employees are required to develop a written affirmative action program

Such companies need to design a policy to ensure equal employment opportunity, and sets forth specific and action-oriented programs to which the relevant employer is committed to implement. Recruitment software used for processes required for compliance is also needs comply.

Besides a number of best-practice and reporting requirements, companies in this category are encouraged to post relevant jobs with the nearest State Job Employment Service. They can also post jobs with other appropriate service delivery points such as the local employment service office. This has considerable implications in the recruitment industry for organisations that may need to comply. Obviously federal contractors and subcontractors that need to be OFCCP-compliant and use the services of recruitment agencies and staffing firms, must ensure that these agencies in turn are OFCCP compliant, or at least can provide the information required for compliance by the Department of Labor.

What is Affirmative Action?

The terms affirmative action and positive action refer to policies that take race, ethnicity, or gender into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. Often affirmative action looks like special consideration given to individuals from disadvantaged groups.

How is this all Relevant to Online Applications?

Recruitment recordkeeping has always been required of federal contractors. With the significant upswing in e-Recruitment, it becomes necessary to extend the recordkeeping requirements to Internet Applicants and associated recruitment software.

There are very specific criteria to determine who qualifies as an Internet applicant:

  The person expresses interest in employment through the Internet or other related electronic technology, such as email, fax or resume databases.

  The person is being considered for a specific position.

  The person has met the basic requirements for the specific position.

  The person does not withdraw from consideration for the position.

What Records must be Maintained for Internet Applicants?

  Documentation of each job post.

  All received resumes and resumes that are considered for positions the employer intends to fill.

  Records regarding the race, gender, and ethnicity of the Internet Applicant.

  Any interview notes.

  In respect to resume database searches (internal or external) and by implication the relevant recruitment software, there are some specific requirements. The recruiter must keep a record of each resume added to the database, a record of the date each resume was added to the database, the position for which each search of the database was made, and corresponding to each search, the search criteria used and date of the search and the resumes of job seekers who met the basic qualifications for the particular position who are considered by the contractor.

What Happens with all this Information Collected?

If a recruiter (contractor or subcontractor) is selected for an audit, the company will undergo an initial "desk audit" review by the OFCCP. During the desk audit, the OFCCP compliance officer reviews the contractor's documented affirmative action plan and supporting data to evaluate the employment activity of the contractor, particularly with respect to the hiring and promotion of people from minority cultural groups and female people.

After the desk audit stage of the review, the compliance officer typically visits the contractor's facility to investigate the problems identified during the desk audit and review:

  Review personnel policies

  Tour the facilities

  Inspect personnel files

How Relevant is OFCCP Compliance to other Countries besides the US?

In Australia, being OFCCP aware is not necessarily to implement the rules and regulations established by the US Department of Labor, but to have a look at the spirit of the legislation and see what we can learn from it to develop our companies.

In many respects OFCCP compliance is about being audit-ready, about the reporting requirements and so forth. The most important lessons however are about discrimination and what organisations are doing to prevent discriminatory behaviour from taking place.

For example, organisations have moved to an almost exclusively to online application processes. But focusing on the efficiencies of this process alone may not make us consider if the application process is available to the disabled or financially disadvantaged for example. If this is the case, then we are missing the point and we are unintentionally discriminating.

Also considering that vendors of applicant tracking systems and recruitment software that are dealing with OFCCP compliance requirements, they need to provide specific reporting on searches and shortlisting logs. There may be some opportunities when it comes to understanding better the processes and practices by which recruitment professionals get to a shortlist of candidates. Analysing this information may lead us to find more opportunities for automation and make the recruitment process as easy, relevant and fair as possible.

All RecruitAdvantage recruitment software processes are OFCCP-compliant.

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