The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has scheduled a live web chat on Monday, April 5, 2010 at 3:30pm EDT to gather input on its Proposed Strategic Plan 2010-2016. OFCCP has also posted a slide show presentation on the Department of Labor website that explains their proposed plan. A link to OFCCP’s Stakeholder Consultation presentation is here.
Highlights from the OFCCP’s Proposed Strategic Plan:
OFCCP defines its mission as enforcing, for the benefit of job seekers and wage earners, the contractual promise of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity required of those who do business with the Federal government.
The agency sets out two important strategic goals to achieve this mission:
- To prepare workers for good jobs and ensure fair compensation by increasing workers’ incomes and narrow wage and income inequality; and helping workers who are in low wage jobs or out of the labor market find a path into middle class jobs.
- To assure fair and high quality work-life environments by breaking down barriers to fair and diverse workplaces so that every worker’s contribution is respected; and ensuring worker voice in the workplace.
Measuring Results: OFCCP points out in their proposed strategic plan that it is measuring results differently. In the future, OFCCP will use a robust sampling model which will allow the agency to better focus its resources. Additionally, OFCCP will measure and report its efforts within a statistically significant portion of the population of federal contractors that will allow the agency to speak on the compliance rate, discrimination rate, and recidivism rate of the contractor universe.
Measuring Success: OFCCP identifies two success measures it will use:
- Compliance: Percent of federal contractors found to be compliant with OFCCP’s governing federal laws and executive order;
- Recidivism of Discrimination: Percent of contractor evaluations with discrimination findings when discrimination had been found in previous evaluations.
OFCCP is looking for input on whether these are the right outcomes and whether these are the right measures for these outcomes.
OFCCP Strategies: OFCCP identifies new approaches it is using.
- OFCCP will broaden its enforcement efforts and will investigate and resolve cases of both individual and systemic discrimination to ensure that individuals as well as classes are given a fair change in the workplace.
- OFCCP will target recidivism of discrimination by contractors.
- To increase compliance, OFCCP will conduct corporate wide multi-establishment reviews as well as industry-specific reviews.
OFCCP’s strategies to achieve these goals include:
- Dedicating resources to enforce Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, VEVRAA and E.O. 11246.
- A renewed emphasis on conducting construction reviews.
- Increasing resources to monitor contractors’ self-audit and self-correction of identified problems.
- Strengthening relationships with the contractor community and developing a comprehensive stakeholder strategy.
OFCCP is seeking input on whether these strategies make sense to you.
A final draft of the Department of Labor’s overall strategic plan, including the OFCCP and other DOL agencies, will be posted on the DOL website for review and comment in July 2010. More information on DOL’s strategic planning process can be found here.