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Plan Settings

KEY TOPICS:

For more information on Adverse Impact, Goal Attainment, and other reporting, see:

Important Note: The system's default Plan Settings (described below) are sufficient for most contractors developing AAPs. Because BALANCEaap uses the most currently accepted OFCCP statistical thresholds available at the time of development, changes should only be made after careful consideration or discussion with a consultant or attorney.

Review Plan Settings for Statistical Calculations

The Plan > Plan Settings screen is comprised of two tabs, the first covering Plan Settings. As linked above, a second tab refers to: Availability Calculation Settings.

Reset to Default

At any time, the default settings can be restored by clicking the [Reset to Default] button in the menu header bar.

Adverse Impact Settings

The Adverse Impact menu displays thresholds for statistical significance, which will impact how differences in employment decision rates between groups are displayed.

To make changes to the Adverse Impact menu , enter the desired value into the field. A checkbox at the bottom of the menu allows you to apply a threshold for determining the favored group when protected and unprotected classes are compared. Click [Save] at the bottom of the page if changes are made.

Below is a description of the underlying methods:

Adverse Impactanalysis compares the selection rate of one groupclass of employees or applicants to the selection rate of another.another class. To support this family of balanceAAP determinesReports, the significanceAdverse ofImpact adversemenu stores settings that impact withhow tworesults methods:

  • are Standard Deviation – 2.0 or greater is considered statistically significant.
  • Fisher’s Exact Test – .025 or lower is considered statistically significant.
displayed.

By default, job groups containing less than 30 records will use the Fisher’s Exact Test. Next, default settings are provided to flag a result that is statistically significant:

  • Standard Deviation – 2.0 or greater
  • Fisher’s Exact Test – 0.025 or lower

An approaching significance threshold is also set for both test types to provide a warning inwhen reports whenan adverse impact for a groupresult is nearapproaching the significance point.

ByA checkbox default,at minoritiesthe (asbottom of the menu allows you to apply a whole2% orrepresentation bythreshold individualbefore race)a are compared to whites, and women are compared to men. The default race and gender for comparisonclass can be changed by selecting them fromconsidered the drop-downfavored lists.group.

Click [Save] at the bottom of the page if changes are made.

Monitoring for Goal Attainment

In a prior year’s plan, goals may have been set to address areas of Adverse Impact. This will require personnel action data in the current plan to be analyzed for progress towards goal attainment.

Use the Monitoring menu to select what data will be used in the analysis. By default, the New Hire and Promotion Data tables are preselected. (Optional) Check the box to include Transfer data (or exclude other data by deselecting the appropriate box). These settings will determine how calculations will be presented on the GOAL ATTAINMENT report.

Click [Save] if changes are made.

Desk Audit (Legacy Function)

The settings below apply to the DESK AUDIT report, which replicates the analysis that has been used by OFCCP to determine if a salary audit is warranted.

Include Groups marked as No Comparator

Groups in which there are no comparators to a class are typically excluded from the calculations. To include groups having no comparator, select: Yes .

Percentage of Acceptable Difference

By default, the Percentage of Acceptable Difference is set at 2%. The class with the higher average is considered favored in that job group.

"The OFCCP flags job groups when:"

These settings default to OFCCP standards for conducting further investigation of a job group when the following is true:

  • The number of protected employees in a group is 30 or more
  • The percentage of the protected class, in groups where the non protected group is favored, is 10% or more
  • Ratio of protected vs. non-protected [equals or exceeds] 3.00.