The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is requesting comments on its proposed changes to the Scheduling Letter and Itemized Listing – the documents that initiate a compliance evaluation of a federal contractor. The proposed changes would significantly increase the information and data that a contractor would be required to submit at the earliest stage of a compliance evaluation. Despite this substantial expansion, the OFCCP does not propose to allow contractors more than the current 30 days to respond.

Some of the proposed changes include the following:

• Contractors with campus-like settings, including institutions of higher education, that maintain multiple affirmative action plans would have to submit all of the AAPs and related information for all parts of the organization in the city subject to the compliance evaluation.
• Contractors would have to provide the following:
  • A list of all action-oriented programs designed to correct problem areas identified in the evaluation of its employment processes.
  • Documentation of its efforts to recruit individuals with disabilities and protected veterans, the criteria used to evaluate those efforts, and whether the efforts were determined to be effective.
  • Evidence of actions taken to comply with the audit and reporting system requirements under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act.
  • Where utilization of individuals with disabilities is less than 7 percent, a description of steps taken to identify impediments to equal employment opportunity and to correct any problem areas.
  • Where placement goals for females and minorities were not attained, a description of “the specific good faith efforts made to remove identified barriers, expand equal employment opportunity, and produce measurable results.”
  • “Documentation of policies and practices regarding all employment recruiting, screening, and hiring mechanisms, including the use of artificial intelligence, algorithms, automated systems or other technology-based selection procedures.”
  • Data on whether individual promotions were competitive or non-competitive, and for all promotions, “the previous supervisor, current supervisor, previous compensation, current compensation, department, job group, and job title from which and to which the person(s) was promoted.”
  • Termination data broken out by the specific reason -- for example, retirement, voluntary resignation, or involuntary termination for a policy violation.
  • Employee-level compensation data for both the snapshot date of the AAP submitted and the prior year snapshot.
  • Evidence that the contractor fulfilled the regulatory requirement to evaluate its compensation system for disparities based on race, ethnicity, and gender.
  • Copies of arbitration agreements that affect employees’ EEO rights.
  • And much, much more!

Contractors may submit written comments to the proposal by January 20. 

For a more in-depth analysis of these proposed changes, please join me and my esteemed colleagues on the Advisory Council to the National Industry Liaison Group for a webinar to be announced soon.