Posted on 10/23/2002 11:38:57 AM PDT by rwjst4
The U.S. Department of Labor?s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is the federal entity responsible for ensuring that federal contractors comply with the equal employment opportunity and affirmative action aspects of their government contracts. OFCCP administers and enforces Executive Order 11246 which prohibits federal contractors who annually do more than $10,000 in Government business, and certain government sub-contractors, from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
To enhance its enforcement capabilities, OFCCP recently created the Equal Opportunity Survey (EOS) to gather employment-related information from federal contractors and sub-contractors. The EOS requests detailed information concerning the employer?s affirmative action plan, as well as summary data on personnel activity and compensation, broken down by gender, race and ethnicity.
The Survey, which may be electronically submitted via the Internet, is designed to increase voluntary compliance by allowing contractors to readily identify potential problems and areas that might benefit from affirmative action. For example, assume the Survey shows men are being hired in a significantly higher proportion of cases than women given their relative application rate, the employer might want to analyze its recruitment and hiring practices to ensure there are no discriminatory reasons why females are less frequently selected. In short, the Survey forces employers to audit their own employment practices, assess the relative success of their practices and affirmative action efforts, and remedy any identified problems.
The EOS is also designed to allow OFCCP to focus its limited resources on those employers most likely to be out of compliance and thereby lessen the likelihood that contractors who are, in fact, complying with OFCCP requirements will be scheduled for evaluation. OFCCP will, in this respect, analyze submitted Surveys to identify establishments for compliance evaluation and ensure those evaluations are tailored to the problem areas specifically identified in the Survey. OFCCP assures contractors that any findings of violation that result from an evaluation scheduled through the EOS process will not be based solely on the contractor?s Survey responses.
For more information concerning the EOS, employers can visit the OFCCP's website and proceed to DOL Agencies, Employment Standards Administration
Executive Order 13087 , amending Executive Order 11478 , was signed on May 28, 1998, to provide a uniform policy for the federal government to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Executive Order 11478 section 1 reads:
It is the policy of the government of the United States to provide equal opportunity in federal employment for all persons, to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap, age, or sexual orientation and to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a continuing affirmative program in each executive department and agency. This policy of equal opportunity applies to and must be an integral part of every aspect of personnel policy and practice in the employment, development, advancement, and treatment of civilian employees of the federal government, to the extent permitted by law.
Not exactly. You can judge that someone failed in his task and say: "I do not know why but he failed on his job I hired him to do, and I want him to be replaced." But you cannot say without studying the issue thoroughly, as many people do, "He made stupid budget decisions."
In my earlier analogy with driving a car, you, the driver are a great judge of whether the car is doing the job that was promised to you. If it does not, you can say so. But you cannot say, "The compression in the cylinders should have been higher --- unless you: (i) are an engineer yourself and (ii) have studied this particular car, and (iii) know that constraints the design team faced when creating the car.
Note also a huge difference between the management in the commercial sector and public administration (government). In the latter, you at least can get your hands on the data. In the case of the budget, if you choose to spend a great deal of time and study it, you can declare that the budget was poorly constructed: you have the information to support your argument. In contrast, almost all such information is unavailable in the case of commercial firms.
Harvard Business School made a business out of publishing management cases. A faculty member goes to a firm, such as Kodak, and that firm opens its books to him (note that 99.99% of people, including middle management, work all their lives and may never once see such data). The agreement is that the data will be disguised in the final product (you can multiply all the numbers by 1.74, for examples). In addition, the case writer interviews, sometimes multiple times, the senior (and other levels) managers (fictitious names are used). In the end, when the case is used to study management issues and techniques, there is still no one right answer. But at least when you read the case you do have an (almost) complete set of circumstances in which the decision is made , including the financial of the company, the composition and history of the management team, the market situation, the industry structures, breakdown of the product line if relevant, etc. In the absence of this, it is silly even to assume that you can judge a particular management decision. Even if the company subsequently failed, you cannot necessarily blame the management.
As for Dilbert, it is indeed popular for a reason: it makes a soldier feel like a general for a moment.
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