By Scott Martin


The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs requires qualified contractors and subcontractors to create an Affirmative Action Plan. An OFCCP AAP is required 120 days after a federal contract has been given to an employer. It is made to ensure that minorities, veterans, women, and PWDs are given equal access to employment opportunities like the rest of the workforce recruited by a specific employer.

All federal contractors with at least fifty employees are mandated to pass an AAP. Additionally, they must hold a contract amounting to at least fifty thousand dollars. Depositories of funds from the government and financial institutions serving as paying and issuing agents for savings notes and savings bonds are authorized to make this action plan.

Those that apply to the aforementioned criteria must follow OFCCP prescribed methods of recruiting and hiring, as well as, tracking and analyzing employment compensation and data. The OFCCP orders random evaluations of audits of those required to build an AAP. If caught with noncompliance, the OFCCP attempts to give a resolution by offering the company a second chance to correct its violations under a given period of time.

If the company ends up failing to comply even after the given period, it can lose its government contract. The company can be prohibited from any government agency onwards. Compensations will also be given to victims of discrimination. Moreover, the company could be liable to settle penalties and fees amounting to a huge sum that could end up crippling the business.

Thorough documentation of reports and files is important in the case of an unexpected audit. Contractors must plan outreach efforts to attract qualified applicants that are protected veterans and PWDs. By affiliating themselves with veteran and disabled organizations, employers must obtain the required benchmark of 6.9% for veterans and 7% for PWDs.

These outreach programs are also expected to produce results. Figures for job openings, candidates for all positions, veteran applicants, veterans hired, and overall applicants hired are included in the process of documentation because these will eventually be evaluated by the agency. Three years is the recommended span of time that these records must be maintained.

AAPs must be customized according to the size of a company and the number of employees that it maintains. They must reflect the organizational structure, policies, practices, and programs employed by the contractor. Documents indicating employment policies and practices, as well as, materials involved in affirmative action efforts must be kept as evidence of compliance.

Federal contractors need to follow a long list of regulations in order to guarantee equal opportunities for everyone. Figures show that approximately four hundred hours is spent annually by large companies on regularly maintaining and updating their AAPs. The hours spent by administrative and management departments on tracking affirmative action programs accumulate to a grand total worth fifteen thousand dollars in resources.

To aid companies in these complex regulations, training programs and seminars are offered by the OFCCP to equip them with vital information about all these processes. Obviously, some companies even hire the expertise of legal and management teams to work on any issues related to OFCCP compliance. Even though companies face huge consequences if they fail to conform to these regulations, employers must ultimately exert an effort to comply with these rules not only to avoid legal issues but in the spirit of genuinely giving minorities a chance at employment.




About the Author:



Axact

Money Making

I am passionate about educating university students about money and careers, and have been doing so since 2007. I see the same confusion and mistakes being replicated every year. The way I help is through Save the Student. I'm always on the look out for new contributors, so get in touch if you're wanting to get involved! Aside from the site, my main interests are travelling, writing, photography, webdesign, sailing, football and cycling.

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