For the past four years the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has been strictly enforcing a new ruling. This breakthrough regulation details the collection, storage and reporting of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) data for online job applicants. The ruling also defines what internet applicants are, creates the essential qualifications and establishes record keeping requirements for Equal Opportunity compliance.
Even though OFCCP regulations are targeted at businesses that have federal contracts, it still remains the responsibility of every company to weed out any possible cases of discrimination during the job application process. Most businesses think it is enough to simply consult an attorney, however in todays world of online applications each job applicant can potentially apply to hundreds of jobs, making the reporting side of things a whole new issue to deal with. Although a spreadsheet could possibly be used to track this compliance information, drawing any useful conclusions or maintaining a standard becomes nearly impossible.
A business should get ahead of the game and ensure that it remains compliant to all government equal opportunity regulations. This can be done by using modern software that stores, tracks and analyzes large volumes of applicant data as it comes in. Applicant Tracking software like this works by prompting applicants to enter EEO data as well as logging why an applicant was not hired.
Many modern recruiting and applicant tracking software vendors create their solutions with EEOC / OFCCP compliance features that can do all this and more. So the questions is, as a company looking to modernize its approach towards equal opportunity compliance, how do you know what to look for in a software vendor? Id like to create a short list of traits that make a good compliance software solution:
* A feature via a branded careers page that prompts applicants to enter voluntary EEO information during the application process.
* A feature that automatically fills in the reasons for non-selection field for every potential hire. This is an integral feature because OFCCP regulations requires that employers know the reasons for non-selection data for every potential applicant when filing time comes around. Make sure this process is streamlined, and doesnt require a ton of extra steps for the data to get where it needs to be.
* A feature that poses a minimum qualification question for every position to be filled. This saves a company a ton of resources because knowing which candidates are qualified means fewer applicants need to be processed. A modern recruiting system will log each job applicants minimum qualification answers along with their history and enable you to remove unqualified candidates from your applicant flow logs automatically.
* A feature that automatically creates applicant flow logs and exports them to the necessary OFCCP filing format. Regulations require that every federal contractor create applicant flow logs that track all the necessary information (name, position, race, sex, reason for non-selection, etc.).
* A feature that creates hire / offer logs instantly that exports to the necessary filing format.
* A feature that allows you to view an overview of your EEO statistics online. A modern system of monitoring these statistics can prevent an expensive lawsuit ahead of time. Ease of access (online) is key, because it will create a statistics suite that is used regularly.
The risk of facing a discrimination lawsuit far outweighs the cost of purchasing an applicant tracking package that includes EEO/OFCCP compliance features such as these. Most solutions only cost a few hundred dollars per month. Any company that is heading into a modern era of hiring should take the due diligence to responsibly and efficiently track job applicants with the associated Equal Employment Opportunity data.
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