Affirmative Action
Save Labor Costs – We do all the Work
As experts in Affirmative Action Plans and compliance, we take care of everything. You will not use valuable company staff to do any analysis, write reports, or set job groups. Just give us your workforce data, and we do the rest.
OFCCP AUDIT EXPERTISE
In addition to preparing affirmative action plans, we represent clients in OFCCP audits. Since our Affirmative Action Plans are so thorough, and prepared with OFCCP in mind, our clients fare exceptionally well in audits.
In fact, our decades of expertise has cemented our reputation as the “go to” source for OFCCP Audit representation. We interface with the OFCCP Auditor and respond to his/her requests for data, reports, analyses, and explanations. In short we handle everything, which allows our clients to focus on running their departments or businesses.
We also provide training and assistance with systems and procedures, to help our clients after an OFCCP audit.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PLAN (AAP) PREPARATION
We advise clients in every facet of affirmative action compliance: from compiling and analyzing data through Plan preparation, program implementation, and management training.
Naturally, we will ask you about job content, promotional paths, internal procedures, hiring practices and other details which aid us in understanding your company’s operations. Our staff will prepare all of your written reports, narrative and statistical, for incorporation in your Affirmative Action Plan and implementation.
A SLOPPY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PLAN COULD COST YOU, WITH OFCCP & THE PUBLIC (see Avoid Legal Exposure below)
Just like an OFCCP Auditor, you need to know what makes or breaks a company’s Affirmative Action Plan. Sloppily prepared Plans, like ill-prepared tax returns, do not fool auditors and fail to help you (since the data is wrong). Worst of all, taking shortcuts and failing to analyze your workforce from all angles, will result in an unusable Plan that hurts your company’s reputation – since it almost always shows a lack of Females & Minorities in your workforce.
WHY WE’RE BETTER: WE GIVE YOU AN ANNUAL BUSINESS PLAN
A thoroughly researched Affirmative Action Plan (AAP), tailored to your company, gives you a concise business plan each year that can be used for workforce planning, community outreach efforts, salary adjustments, budgeting, strategic planning, and training.
Naturally, your AAP also yields immense benefit in meeting your EEO obligations, implementing your affirmative action program, measuring the effectiveness of your Diversity & Inclusion efforts, and advertising your positive approach to developing a diverse workforce.
Salary Analyses
As a bonus, we prepare additional salary equity reports and workforce analyses tailored for your organization.
Audit of Your Data
We take great time and effort to clean up your data, removing errors and analyzing for consistency. When data fails to track (a sure-fire OFCCP red flag), we analyze where your systems and procedures failed and advise you how to correct them.
Our AAPs reflect reality, not theory, giving you an analytical snapshot of your Business Operations
It takes much more time and analysis to hand-select actual employees for promotion, but the results are worth it. We properly analyze your workforce and operations so that our analyses and reports give you an analytical snapshot of your business each year, not theoretical suppositions.
From an EEO standpoint, our thorough approach gives your company more favorable Utilization of Females and Minorities in the statistical analysis…and reflects your actual workforce to boot.
GOOD RESULTS – IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS
An Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) that is accurate, shows favorable Utilization statistics, and lays the foundation for program implementation is the key to a great OFCCP audit.
In preparing your AAP, we assiduously analyze your workforce data and group employees for highest benefit to your company. As experienced consultants, we assign individual census data to each job and hand-select jobs that will promote into a Job Group (based on incumbents, career progression, reporting 
structure, and salary).
Not only is this more accurate, and therefore more usable for implementation and training, but it gives a more favorable Utilization outcome (because large groups of employees – who probably lack the requisite skills and experience – are not shown to promote into Job Groups). OFCCP auditors look askance at AAPs that contain errors, do not reflect the workforce, and fail to contribute to Affirmative Action Program implementation.
Avoid legal exposure
Taking shortcuts in preparing your AAP can lead to legal problems and unwanted attention from OFCCP auditors, as statistics in your AAP will overstate the availability of females and minorities to fill job openings.
It is critical that a highly skilled professional, expert in job content and organizational analysis, prepare your company’s AAP. Preparing an AAP is not a clerical endeavor, nor can a computer program simply “crunch numbers” and spit out reports that will pass audit or accurately depict your workforce.
In a proper and thorough AAP, each job title in the workforce will be researched so that a list is compiled of actual employees who could promote into that title (based on factors such as skills, salary, career ladders, and job longevity). This becomes the basis of the “Promotables” statistics. A “promotable” employee is defined as someone who would be considered for promotion into a specific job, based on factors such as qualifications, base pay, and skills.
In a quick-and-dirty AAP, instead of hand-selecting each employee for his/her ability to promote into specific higher-level jobs, the practitioner simply lists entire Job Groups or EEO Categories as available to promote. Thus, hundreds of unqualified people may be listed as being able to promote, instead of just a handful.
For instance, all PROFESSIONALS in the company might be listed as promoting into all OFFICIALS & MANAGERS without regard to job titles, skills, field of expertise, or department. Or, all ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGERS might be listed as promoting into ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTORS – despite the fact that only a few of the Managers could promote.
This skews Availability Statistics* to the detriment of the company, because large numbers of “non-promotable” employees – who would never be considered for promotion – are included in the Promotables Statistics (even though they lack the job skills or work in an unrelated field of expertise). As a result, the company is perceived by OFCCP and the public as acting in bad faith for: a) failing to promote eligible employees per its own Affirmative Action Plan and b) preparing an Affirmative Action Plan that cannot be implemented – because it is based on erroneous, inaccurate information.
*Availability Statistics denote the number of people available to fill open jobs, based on Census Data and Promotables (employees available to promote)
DELIVERY CONFERENCE
We present our reports and findings to our clients during a 2-4 hour delivery conference, to review data compilation and consistency, systems, policies and procedures, the Affirmative Action Plan, new regulations, implementation, and training.
Additionally, we explain all affirmative action and salary reports to you, and the impact of our findings on your company’s operations, legal exposure and bottom line.
Our Plans are so thorough, they can be used as a managerial tool in budgeting, planning and training.
Advice on Operations and Compliance
When we discover trends, data problems, salary inequities, regulatory compliance issues, or hiring, termination and promotion anomalies, we will document these items and review them in our delivery conference with you (and if you’d like, with your Managers).
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION TRAINING & PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION
We provide management training (analysis, compliance and implementation), reviewing the results from your Affirmative Action Plans for the past two years and our recommendations for corrective action.
We also advise clients in Affirmative Action Program implementation, including development of: practices and procedures, personnel activity policies and tracking (applicants, hires, terminations, promotions, layoffs), applicant tracking programs, job reviews, internal salary equity analyses, and management training programs.
GUARANTEED TO PASS AUDIT
From the day our firm opened its doors, 100% of our Affirmative Action Plans have passed audit. We guarantee our Plans and provide in-depth expertise through every phase of your audit.
For further details or to schedule an initial consultation, please Contact Us at one of our regional offices.