On April 9 and 10, 2019, OFCCP held Compliance Assistance Town Halls in Manhattan, NY. Similar to the 2017 Town Hall series, the events allow the contractor community to collaborate and brainstorm action items that will eventually drive OFCCP’s policy agenda. Harvey Fort, OFCCP’s Acting Director of Policy and Program, explained that 2017’s town hall events resulted in an action plan with 25 deliverables. The agency selected 18 of those deliverables to implement, and have fully executed 8 deliverables to date. Fort hopes that the feedback garnered from this town hall series, specifically focused on the financial and legal industries, will have the same impact.
During Director Craig Leen’s remarks, he stressed some overarching for contractors to address during the town halls:
- Women and Minority representation in senior/executive and partner levels in organizations
- Disability Inclusion
- Parental/Family Leave
- Compensation Equity
- Comparable / Similarly situated employee groups
Overall, one of the most popular and reoccurring suggestions from the contracting community during the sessions was that OFCCP facilitate virtual communities where contractors can collaborate and share best practices on a variety of compliance topics.
OFCCP and DOL staff also provided updates on current and upcoming initiatives:
- In accordance with Directive 2018-07, OFCCP is in the process of constructing an AAP “portal” for the purpose of collecting contractor’s plans as a part of OFCCP’s AAP verification initiative. They hope to eventually use that portal to identify contractors who are not completing AAPs, instead of using the SAM database as previously speculated.
- The agency has a new focus on the hiring of military spouses.
- 503/VEVRAA focused review onsite plans will be released. DirectorLeen suggests contractors perform their own proactive 503/VEVRRA focused reviews to prepare.
- The agency is in the process of developing a guidance document on similarly situated employee groups for compensation analyses.
- Finally, the agency plans to release FAQs on what steps contractors should take after conducting proactive compensation analyses.
DCI will keep the contracting community informed on OFCCP’s action plan assembled from this series of town halls.
Click here to review the Action Plan and Deliverables from the 2017 OFCCP Town Halls
By Macy Cheeks, Associate Consultant at DCI Consulting Group
