Getting In Compliance With The Feds No Easy Task
When a business decides to become a federal or state contractor, there are plenty of strings that come with the deal.
One of the most cumbersome, but least understood, are the requirement of federal and state contractors to comply with affirmative action recruitment and hiring policies.
But ignorance of the rules and regulations is no excuse. And a company found to be out of compliance with the complex rules can be hit with penalties or lose their government contracts, according to Michelle L. Maciel, manager of HR services at the Employers Association of Lincoln, R.I.
While many employers balk at what seems like a herculean task to keep up with the paperwork of the government’s affirmative action requirements, Maciel said it doesn’t have to be too onerous for the business.
“Once they’re up and running, the maintenance of the plan should be a much simpler task for an organization,” she said.
The first step towards compliance is in developing a clear affirmative action plan that sets in place a clear system for inclusive hiring practices.
What’s Required
Federal rules require that anyone doing business with the federal government — including subcontractors — document efforts to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.
That means employers must understand the demographics of the region from which they are hiring, according to Maciel.
Specifically, a business must consider the demographics of the area from which they are recruiting when they advertise for potential applicants.
“A lot of organizations aren’t doing enough outreach for a larger base of applicants,” Maciel said. Employers are well-advised to make a conscious effort to reach out to specific minority newspapers or veterans websites.
“You want to make sure that you’re giving minorities and people with disabilities the same opportunities that you’re giving anybody else,” she said. “In order to do that, you need to be reaching out in various forms. Just placing an ad is not really enough.”
But the good news is that there are now many free online sites to reach targeted audiences, according to Maciel.
What’s At Stake
The government also has systems in place to make sure that businesses comply with the affirmative action rules through regular, random audits.
Worcester-based AdCare Hospital was subject to an audit in 2008 and just received confirmation that the hospital passed with flying colors, according to Joan Bertrand, the hospital’s vice president of human resources.
And that’s a good thing, because the “penalties for non-compliance are huge,” Bertrand said.
Of course, these efforts to keep up with the latest regulations and paperwork can be demanding on employers. Because of the need to collect information on hiring for affirmative action as well as other issues, Bertrand said AdCare hired a full-time person to manage all that data.
Worcester-based Spectrum Health Systems, which operates drug treatment programs in eight states, has never been audited, but has worked hard to maintain compliance.
Those efforts are headed by Stacy Flanagan, vice president for human resources at Spectrum. She said that the organization has a system in place to make sure program and hiring managers are properly tracking all the applicants for jobs and the interviews conducted to meet the affirmative action requirements.
In the end, Flanagan said, following an affirmative action plan isn’t that difficult for Spectrum.
“In my experience, working in human services as we do, we seem to attract women and minorities fairly well,” she said.
Beyond tracking candidates, Spectrum has recently put in place a new cultural sensitivity and awareness program to help reinforce the idea that the agency values diversity.
Common Misconceptions
At the end of the day, Maciel said that businesses and HR directors should keep in mind the purpose of the affirmative action guidelines.
“The point of an affirmative action plan is to show you’re making the effort,” she said. If a business does everything right by following its own plan to reach out to a diverse pool of candidates — and can document that effort — they should be in compliance. There’s no need to get too hung up on who’s actually applying.
“That’s really out of your control,” Maciel said.
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