Are You 100% OFCCP Compliant (Or Did You Forget About Your Agencies)?

If your company has US Government contracts you surely invested a ton to meet OFCCP rules.

You’re confident in the processes your company has implemented to ensure your recruiting team systematically meets the record keeping requirements.

You’re probably even pretty sure how you’ll handle an inevitable OFCCP audit that will eventually happen, if it hasn’t already. But!! What about the recruiting agencies you work with? As you can see from the following section in OFCCP guidelines, your company is also responsible for the agencies that represent you when hiring candidates:

“The use of a recruiting firm in the hiring process does not relieve a contractor of its recordkeeping obligations under 41 CFR 60-1.12; the contractor will be held accountable if the specified records are not maintained.

A contractor may ask that a recruiting firm keep records on its behalf so that the contractor can use the records to monitor its personnel practices and demonstrate compliance to OFCCP. Keep in mind, however, that under the Internet Applicant Final Rule, the recordkeeping obligations belong to the Federal contractor or subcontractor.

A contractor cannot delegate its obligations to another firm and would be held accountable if required records were not maintained.”

Are you sure those processes will pass? Any chance an audit will uncover a liability? We’ve run into many employers over the years who didn’t have iron clad protection from a potential mountain of violations.

We first ran into the request in 2007 when a national defense contractor wanted to make sure their agencies were not only aware of the requirements and committed to following them, but constantly reminded of them during every key stage of the candidate process.

They found BountyJobs to be an elegant way to solve the problem, because BountyJobs is the only technology that is present at every one of these interactions between client and agency.

Fast forward 7 years, and the problem still exists at massive scale. Earlier this year, we sat down with the talent acquisition team of one of the largest companies in the world.

As we sat around the table helping their talent team get agency spend under control, we soon found their legal team asking for help as well.

The firm had just settled a well-publicized, multi-million dollar hiring discrimination suit with the US Government, and needed to ensure they had a system to ensure agencies they work with are also OFCCP compliant.

Want to avoid the nightmare? Our recommendation. Three easy rules to being 100% OFCCP compliant.

100% OFCCP Compliant? 3 Rules to Make Sure

• Rule #1 – Consider ALL recruitment channels when thinking about OFCCP. Being OFCCP compliant is not just about your internal team, but also may involve the sources they utilize and the vendors on which you depend.

• Rule #2 – Implement a proven system. One that’s been utilized by other government contractors, tested by great legal teams, and battle hardened through actual audits. Ideally you’ll have a system that give visibility and control over all agency usage and processes. OFCCP is not new, so you shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel at this point.

• Rule #3 – Test it. Every scenario is possible, which means you must assume it will eventually happen.

Want to hear more stories, get more information about OFCCP regulations or talk to someone who’s been through (gulp) an OFCCP audit involving their agencies? Give us a call or connect with us in the comments.

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