OFCCP’s Contractor Assistance Portal now includes a feature where employers can “Ask OFCCP A Question” via an interactive discussion board. This new tool is in line with OFCCP’s pillars of transparency and certainty, as contractors and subcontractors can pose questions directly to the agency in a public forum. The agency has stated that it will host live chats and discussions on the board from time to time. The goal of this feature is to facilitate knowledge sharing amongst contractors, as well as between contractors and the agency.
Questions can be posted anonymously, as a public user, or posted privately, from both employers and employees. All questions are archived in the portal for contractor’s future reference.
There have been a number of questions posted in the portal thus far. For instance, one anonymous user asked the following question relating to job posting requirements:
“As a federal contractor hospital, that has hiring policies. They are not following their hiring policy by posting external jobs. They aren’t posting entry level jobs. They do post the job online every once in a while, but the job really isn’t available. They post it to make it look good for their audits. My question is, is this a violation, Vets and disabled people do not get a chance to apply. Why have policies if they aren’t required to follow them?”
OFCCP provided guidance to the above question by referencing a contractor’s job posting requirements under VEVRAA, i.e. listing with appropriate employment service delivery systems (ESDS). Of note, the agency also clarified that employees can file complaints on the OFCCP website if contractors fail to follow the job posting requirements. This means employees, in addition to employers, are able to post on the board and seek feedback from OFCCP.
To access the discussion board, please log in at the following link: https://ofccpcontractor.dol.gov/s/login/. The agency has facilitated navigation in the portal by adding a drop down box at the top of the board, where users can filter the questions by topic.
DCI will continue to share key updates from “Ask OFCCP A Question” here on our blog.
By Lily Kerr, HR Analyst and Marcelle Clavette, Consultant at DCI Consulting Group
