WIR asked, “How do you deal with external availability calculations in AAPs when you start to sense they are NOT accurately reporting true external availability?”
Judy: “I have never used external applicant flow in lieu of census data. External applicant flow has a LOT more issues than the census data and those issues are only getting worse with the high turnover of the TA staffs. What I will do on occasion is use some internal applicant flow. Let’s say there’s a training program for Machinist and the feeder pool is the Machine Operators. Machine Operators has 80% females, but very few of them would like to be Machinists. The client keeps record of who applies internally for the trainee program, and of course 90% of them are men. So yes – we will use three years’ worth of internal data instead of using everyone in the feeder pool. The only time I use external applicant flow is as my first line of defense when a client misses their goal. If the goal is to hire 20% minority engineers and they miss the goal, we will talk about the broad recruiting that was done, and how, despite our good faith efforts, only 10% of the applicants were minorities. Then we will promise to try harder next year.”
“I’ve been using the new census data since February 2021 when it arrived at the data warehouse in Excel. The new Occupation Index will be published in 2028, and the next round of EEO tables won’t be out until 2031. So, it’s not going away or being replaced. I’ve promised my new friends at the Census Bureau that I would give them a list of codes that should not be combined next time. These are great people who simply did not have a full understanding of how the data is actually used for AAPs. They are smart and kind, have answered all of my questions, and are eager to get feedback on how to improve the tables. Any time you go to the portal you can click on the “was this helpful” button and give them feedback. I encourage everyone to do that. In the meantime, 95% of the data is great and usable. So, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Find other codes, another source, or use the low end of the MOE for the 5% of the data which is unusable.”
“As an Affirmative Action practitioner, I don’t look at the margin of error unless the percentage of female or minorities seems, on the surface, to be unreasonable for the recruiting area that I’m using. Then I look at the total number of people in the population. If that is really small, I will look for a different code with more people. The larger the population, the better the data. If that doesn’t work, I will find another source, or use the low end of the margin of error. Fortunately, the regulations do not require federal contractors or subcontractors to establish goals for minority subgroups. I hope the OFCCP does not go down that road. Not only would it be problematic with MOEs since the numbers will be smaller for each race/ethnicity, but there is no data for two or more races in the EEO Tables.”
“Also – we’ve known since the start that census data wasn’t perfect. That’s why we get 20% off! We have four options when determining underutilization, the any difference rule which I hope no one uses, the 80% rule, very popular, the whole-person rule also very popular, and the 2 standard deviation rule which is popular with large companies even though it is used too often for small job groups. (I never recommend 2 Standard Deviations to my clients because their headcounts are too small, and it makes my client’s eyes roll back in their heads. Plus, I like to use one rule for all my job groups.)”
Stan: “With the 2010 Census data, we did have some situations where the Census data did not show anyone in particular occupational categories in the reasonable recruiting area for some clients, while at the same time, the clients employed people in those categories. If I recall correctly, in those instances we would add a percentage to reflect those individuals.”
“I continued to prepare “’consolidated’” AAPs well past the implementation of Functional AAPs, and extended the OFCCP’s “’campus’” approach beyond institutions of higher education to other supply and service contractors, so my attitude toward availability estimates is equally “’relaxed.’” For most of our clients, goals were like corks floating in the ocean, disappearing one year into a trough, rising on a wave into visibility in another year, then disappearing again.”
“And if you have a small establishment, with a Job Group of a dozen executives, you determine a goal (or not) based on the entire population of the Job Group, but you certainly aren’t likely to turn over all twelve in a year. Perhaps one, maybe two. What’s a Minority goal of 12% against that number? Similarly, if you have a Job Group with a mix of three or more Census occupational classifications, you do the weighted calculation of availability, but you’re unlikely to hire within more than one of those classifications. You hire an accountant, but all those HR professionals are pushing the numbers up (or down).”
“Companies like OutSolve (and Gaucher Associates) work to prepare AAPs as efficiently as possible, in order to keep costs low. To the extent that researching and determining if, when, and where to address margins of error increases the time needed to prepare an AAP, that means extra cost.”
“Given that the OFCCP has to date paid little to no attention to the construction of availability estimates, there is little pressure to tweak those estimates to a contractor’s advantage (or to satisfy those clients who want to have goals). And where the OFCCP’s focus is on goals, and a contractor’s efforts to meet those goals through outreach and recruiting, it isn’t so much having a goal (say for a Job Group composed of Airline Pilots, given that the 2020 occupational classification includes both Pilots and Flight Attendants), as being able to stay ahead of the OFCCP in terms of appropriate recruiting sources. Contractors don’t want the agency to come up with sources they aren’t already using, or have considered and rejected for good reason.”
“We had one audit where the Regional operations director was so desperate to find fault, that he identified a Service Job Group containing a medical technician title, which comprised perhaps six people out of a total of 200+ in the Job Group, and insisted that it belonged more properly in a Technician Job Group. Only this particular title was described in the EEO-1 guide as a service position (along the lines of “’Sanitation Engineer’” for garbage handler). We have also encountered Compliance Officers who did not know how to construct a weighted average of Census data.”
“The agency’s Compliance Officers are being whipped from above, and the demand is for pay and hiring discrimination “’scalps,’” so that’s where the focus is. And that’s where AAP preparers are spending the bulk of their time, trying to ensure that those things aren’t happening.”
Michael: “There’s no such thing as “’true external availability.’” When I’m tentatively done with the Availability Analysis, I put the contractor’s incumbents and the proposed Availability percentages through the Fisher’s Exact Test. If the differences aren’t statistically significant, and I wouldn’t have to declare a goal, I don’t adjust anything.”
“But if any are statistically significant, I do look back at all the assumptions I’ve made and consider whether the census data are responsible for a false positive. That includes whether I chose the best matches or should consider other census titles that might better estimate the availability of minorities and females.”
“I look at the hiring and applicant percentages for the most recent year, and several years, if I have the data. If the contractor is doing a good job at recruiting minorities and females in other job groups, I’m inclined to consider merging hiring or applicant percentages, whichever is higher, into the census percentage for the outlier job group.”
“I’m mindful of some other considerations. The OFCCP isn’t conducting many audits, so the chances that any of my clients’ AAPs being audited is minimal. Declaring a goal is not a red flag during an audit, but it does require some good faith efforts during the year to meet it. If the contractor is doing “’everything’” it can think of to hire more minorities or females in the job group and after several years, hiring percentages of minorities or females don’t change, it may be time to reevaluate whether the Availability and goal percent are simply too high and that the census may be giving us a false positive.”
Following up on Judy’s and Stan’s comments about Pilots and Flight Attendants, Michael offered the following observations:
“In the 2000 EEO reports, 7.1% of Airline pilots in the US were minorities and 4.0% were females. For Flight Attendants, 27.2% were minorities and 78.7% were females.”
In the 2006-2010 ACS reports, 9.4% of Airline pilots in the US were minorities and 4.7% were females. For Flight Attendants, 27.8% were minorities and 79.6% were females.”
In the 2014-2018 ACS reports, Airline pilots and Flight Attendants were consolidated into the same Census Title: “Air Transportation Workers,” with 22.8% minorities and 34.1% females.”
“Airlines most likely keep their Pilots in a separate job group from their Flight Attendants. The ACS only gives airlines one set of data to use for both job groups. If I were preparing an AAP for an airline, I wouldn’t use the ACS EEO reports for either group.”