2H00 Section 503 AAP and Itemized Listing Data Submissions

During the desk audit, COs examine the Section 503 AAP and Itemized Listing data to ensure the submission includes the required content and determines whether the AAP and support data are acceptable. During the on-site review, COs interview contractor officials and others regarding the development and implementation of the AAP, and obtain documentation evidencing the same. COs record any problems identified during the desk audit in the SCER Part A. Any problems COs identify during the on-site review are noted in the SCER Parts B and C, as appropriate. COs must examine whether the contractor satisfied the following elements that are required parts of Section 503 AAP.

a. Equal Opportunity Policy Statement. COs must verify that the policy statement is clearly posted on bulletin boards in an accessible location. COs must examine the policy statement to determine if it is current, noting whether the person responsible for implementing the AAP is named.111

b. Review of Personnel Processes. COs may need to ask several questions to confirm a contractor’s review of personnel processes that include, but are not limited to, those stated below.

• Does the contractor periodically review personnel processes to ensure that the qualifications of individuals with disabilities for jobs, training and promotion are fully considered, and that individuals with disabilities have equal access to the personnel processes to apply for such opportunities? How often is this done?
• What procedures has the contractor designed to facilitate the periodic review?
• How does the contractor document its review of personnel processes and any actions it takes? How is that review conducted and by whom?
• Have there been requests to modify personnel practices as a reasonable accommodation? How did the contractor respond to the requests?

COs must obtain and review all relevant documentation, including procedures, reports and personnel files. COs must also determine whether the contractor’s personnel processes provide for the careful, thorough and systematic consideration of the job qualifications of applicants and employees with known disabilities for job vacancies, either for hire or promotion, and for all training opportunities.

c. Review of Physical and Mental Job Qualifications. The contractor is obligated to periodically review the physical and mental qualifications of its jobs, and to eliminate those qualifications that tend to screen out qualified individuals on the basis of disability and are not job-related and consistent with business necessity. The Section 503 AAP must contain a schedule for this periodic review. While on-site, the CO must request samples of any mental or physical job qualification standards and interview individuals responsible for their periodic review.

To assess the contractor’s review of its physical and mental job qualifications, COs should consider the following questions:

• When did the contractor write or last update the job descriptions? Do the job descriptions accurately reflect the duties of the job? Do the job descriptions require the employee or applicant to perform duties in a specific way? If so, and those requirements tend to screen out qualified individuals on the basis of disability, is there a business necessity for performing the duties in this way or are there alternate ways the duties can be performed satisfactorily?
• Are there job qualifications that would tend to screen out individuals based on disability? For example, an unassisted lifting requirement may screen out individuals with disabilities even though employees are not required to lift unassisted.
• Are those job qualifications based on business necessity? If not, are there alternative qualifications that the contractor can use?
• Are there positions that do not have written job descriptions? If so, how does the contractor identify and review job qualifications?

d. Provide Needed Reasonable Accommodation to Physical and Mental Limitations. Contractors must provide needed reasonable accommodation to the known physical and mental limitations of qualified individuals with disabilities unless the accommodation would cause an undue hardship. Accommodations may include, but are not limited to:

• Modifying work places and making work places and other contractor facilities used by employees accessible;
• Restructuring of nonessential functions of jobs;
• Allowing essential functions to be performed in a different way;
• Assigning nonessential functions of the job to other employees;
• Providing readers, sign language interpreters or assistive devices;
• Providing part-time work, flexible hours, or telework; and
• Reassigning employees to a vacant position.

COs should inquire whether there is a process in place by which individuals can request needed accommodations, how requests for accommodations are processed, and whether the contractor has provided accommodations as a matter of affirmative action. COs must also determine whether officials responsible for implementing the accommodation obligation are appropriately trained to address requests for accommodation. COs must also review the contractor’s accommodation request records that were not already reviewed at the desk audit to assess whether the contractor responds to requests promptly and appropriately. All accommodations made by the contractor must be effective. Generally, this means the contractor must provide the person who needs the accommodation the ability to perform essential job duties. In the case of an applicant, reasonable accommodation could include, for example, providing an alternate means for applying and being considered for employment other than through an online application system. If requests for accommodation were denied, COs must obtain documentation reflecting these decisions and the basis for the decisions to ensure that the denials were proper.

e. Develop and Implement Procedures to Prevent Harassment. COs must confirm that the contractor developed and implemented procedures to ensure that employees are not harassed because of their disability status. COs should request a copy of these procedures, interview the official responsible for implementation, and review reports or internal investigations of alleged harassment based on disability status and the contractor’s response.

f. Disseminate EEO Policy Externally and Perform Outreach and Positive Recruitment. While on-site, COs must request documentation showing that subcontractors were notified of the contractor’s affirmative action policy, requesting appropriate action on the part of the subcontractors. Additionally, COs must verify during the on-site review that the contractor engaged in outreach and positive recruitment activities, evaluated the effectiveness of each outreach or recruitment activity, and assessed the total effectiveness of all of its efforts combined. While on-site, the CO must request documentation for all its outreach activities and assessments for the three years prior to the AAP year, as well as any documentation of efforts during and after the AAP year. If the documentation and assessments show that the contractor’s efforts were not effective, the CO must determine whether the contractor has implemented alternative efforts to identify qualified individuals with disabilities.112 COs may also refer contractors to OFCCP’s ERRD or other community resource databases that could serve as a recruitment resource.

g. Disseminate EEO Policy Internally. The AAP should clearly describe the methods the contractor used to disseminate its EEO policy internally. During the on-site review, COs must verify that the contractor actually implemented these measures.113 COs must obtain documentation and verify through interviews that the internal dissemination activities identified in the AAP occurred.

h. Design and Implement an Audit and Reporting System. COs must confirm that the contractor has an audit and reporting system that, among other requirements, measures the overall effectiveness of its AAP. To do this, the CO must request documentation of the contractor’s actions to implement the audit and reporting system, as described in the AAP. COs should obtain documentation of past audit(s), any remedial actions taken and their effectiveness. The COs may conduct interviews with responsible officials and employees.

i. Designate an Official to Implement the AAP. While on-site, COs may seek an interview with the official named in the AAP to determine their specific responsibilities and the authority assigned to that individual, and how the official assesses the implementation of the AAP. COs must obtain documentation, such as a copy of the individual’s position description, copies of reports the individual has prepared and supporting documentation for any assessments the official conducted.

j. Train Personnel to Ensure that the Contractor Implements EEO and AAP Commitments. COs must interview contractor staff, managers and officials to confirm that the contractor’s personnel involved in the recruitment, screening, selection, promotion, discipline and related processes have been trained to ensure that the commitments in the AAP are implemented. Questions relevant to this determination include:

• Does the contractor provide training to personnel? What type of training does the contractor provide? When, how frequently, and by whom is this training provided?
• What are the trainer’s qualifications?
• Did the trainer use training materials? What were they?

  If the trainer used written training materials, the CO must request a copy.

k. Analyze Data Collected on Applicants and Hires with Disabilities. If, during the desk audit or on-site review, COs identify problems related to the contractor’s Section 503 affirmative action obligations, COs must request the total number of applicants and hires for all jobs, total number of applicants and hires with known disabilities, total number of job openings and total number of jobs filled, going back three years from the beginning of the contractor’s current AAP year.114 For a contractor that is six months or more into the current AAP year, COs may also request records the contractor collected after the beginning of its current AAP year so that the CO can calculate the totals of applicants, hires, job openings, and jobs filled. In some instances, the contractor may have already computed these totals. These requests must also be made to verify accuracy if COs detect data integrity problems at the desk audit or during the on-site review.

COs may use these data to inform their determinations on the effectiveness of the contractor’s outreach and positive recruitment activities, and whether the contractor’s personnel processes allow for the careful, systematic and thorough consideration of the job qualifications of qualified individuals with disabilities. Some relevant questions might include:

• How does the contractor use the totals of applicants, hires, job openings and jobs filled as a criterion when determining the effectiveness of its outreach efforts?
• If the totality of its outreach efforts were not effective in identifying and recruiting individuals with disabilities, what alternative efforts did the contractor implement (see examples at 41 CFR 60-741.44(f)(2))?
• Does the data indicate any potential problem with the personnel processes utilized by the contractor when considering job qualifications of applicants and employees with disabilities for job vacancies filled either by hiring or promotion?