Glossary of AAP Terms
Affirmative Action Plan
From the Code of Federal Regulations 41 Section 60-2.10:“An affirmative action program is a management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity. ... Effective affirmative action programs also include internal auditing and reporting systems as a means of measuring the contractor's progress toward achieving the workforce that would be expected in the absence of discrimination.”
Accordingly, an Affirmative Action plan, prepared annually, consists of statistics and narratives as specified by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). By looking at a 12-month period, preceding the plan date, the employer can assess the current state of employment opportunity with the organization to determine if additional actions need to be taken. Update plans for interim periods are developed to monitor Affirmative Action and measure progress.
The Agency performs periodic audits of contractors to review their Affirmative Action programs.
Adverse Impact
Adverse impact occurs in a personnel action when the selection rate of one class of applicants or employees falls below 80% of the selection rate of a complement class, taking into consideration whether the action is positive (e.g., promotion) or negative (i.e., termination). Traditional adverse impact considers the selection rate of a protected class (i.e., race or gender) against the complement non-protected class.Applicant
A person considered for a job within an organization. An applicant for the purpose of Affirmative Action reporting should be defined to ensure conformance to the regulations and support consistent practices within your organization. This term is typically limited to those who express interest in a particular job opening and who meet minimum qualifications for employment in that position.For more information on the regulatory definition, see: Definition of an Internet Applicant.
Availability
The percentage of a protected class, calculated to be available for employment openings within a job group at a work location. In determining External Availability, data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau are used to compile demographics by occupation and geographic area. Internal Availability is determined by analyzing avenues of promotion within your organization.Census Occupation Codes
Contained in the U.S. census data set, Census Occupation Codes are standardized conventions for classifying job titles. To support External Availability calculations, each job title within your organization is matched to a census occupation code.Company Name
The Company Name will appear at the top of all reports printed in balanceAAP. Location names or information can e provided and included, separately.Comparator
A comparator is a member of the non-protected class who has been successful in being hired, promoted, transferred, or not terminated, or who receives a salary above the median. Protected class members who were not successful are then compared to the comparators in a Cohort Analysis.Department Hierarchy
Drilldown Reports
EEO Category
As defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), EEO Categories are broad job classifications, based on employer type (e.g., private organization, educational institution). The EEOC compiles job classification schedules, accordingly. EEO Categories are then applied to job groups within your organization, during AAP preparation.Employment
The number or percentage of minorities or females among those employed at a work location. Protected class employment percentages are compared to availability percentages in the Utilization Analysis.Errors
In BALANCEaap, Errors are records containing blank, invalid, or duplicate data. Because Errors prevent the records from being included in AAP calculations, they must be corrected before one can proceed.Executive Order 11246
Signed originally by President Lyndon Johnson and since amended, Executive Order 11246 forms the basis for the Affirmative Action obligations of Federal contractors and other covered entities.Establishment (or Facility)
A work location that falls under an organization's umbrella. The location must be accounted for in AAP and EEO-1/VETS reporting, according to specific regulations.Factor Weights
In a weighted analysis, a weight is a statement of how important a factor is to the whole calculation. Factor weighting is used to establish the relative importance of internal and external availability in your organization's hiring practices.Feeder Jobs
Staffed positions within your organization that provide a normal promotion path into a particular job group. A "source' feeder job for the "target" job group comes from a job group that is lower in the hierarchy. Therefore in most cases, a job group should be prevented from being both the source and target for feeders.File Consistency Issues
In balanceAAP, File Consistency Issues are flagged by the system, indicating potential data discrepancies across an employee's set of records. In this case, you may continue with running AAP analyses. However, for most accurate plan results, the issues should be reviewed to ascertain whether they are correct within your data scheme or require editing before proceeding.Placement Goals
If utilization in a job group for a protected class falls below availability to the level defined by the Utilization Rule selected, a placement goal will be set for that group equal to its availability percentage.History Data
History data includes employment and availability numbers from the previous year’s affirmative action plan. Previous year’s employment numbers are needed to determine the number of incumbents for promotion, transfer, and termination impact ratio analyses. Previous year’s availability numbers are needed for the Goal Attainment and Share of Opportunities reports.Job Group
One job or a group of jobs having similar content, compensation or opportunity. Usually an EEO Category or a subset of an EEO Category. Job groups are the fundamental unit of analysis in an affirmative action plan. Reports such as the Job Group Analysis, Availability Computation, Utilization Analysis, Goals, Impact Ratio Analysis, and Goal Attainment are organized by job group.Master Plan
For organizations with multiple plans, a Master Plan can be created to:- Control global settings and content across plans
- House the organization's data set to ensure accuracy across plans
- Produce AAP reporting for plans as a whole or in part
Narrative
The following Narratives are required elements of an Affirmative Action plan:- Women and Minorities
- Individuals with Disabilities
- Protected Veterans
In addition to outlining your organization’s commitments, policies, and actions regarding Affirmative Action, each Narrative "ties" the relevant statistical reporting together with verbiage to create a cohesive document.
OFCCP
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is a part of the U.S. Department of Labor and has overall responsibility for ensuring that government contractors, subcontractors and certain financial institutions comply with federal regulations including those concerning affirmative action.Organizational Display
Personnel ActionsAction
A Personnel Action is an activity involving the employer that alters the employment status of an associated individual. Personnel actions - Applicants
- New
addition, two user-defined personnel actions can be tracked.Hires - Promotions
- Transfers
- Terminations
- User-defined Personnel
action data for the calendar year preceding your plan date should be included.Action
Plan Name
The Plan Name simply differentiates AAPs by year and analysis period. For organizations having set of plans (i.e., a Master plan, supported by sub-plans), the Plan Name applies to the Master plan as a whole; and the sub-plans are identified by Company (name) and Establishment (name).Promotion Calculations
An alternative to using identified feeder jobs; promotion calculations reflect the employment statistics of those jobs from which promotions actually occurred.Promotion
Data for the calculations can be drawn from the current year promotion file or the promotion history file.Protected Class
A Protected Class is a category of persons, covered by provisions of regulations or statutes. In preparing affirmative action plan statistics, the protected classes include:- Females
- Minorities
- Blacks, Asians/Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, American Indians/Alaskan Natives
- Protected Veterans
- Individuals with Disabilities (IWDs)
Recruitment Area
When using Census data, recruitment areas can be places of 50,000+ people (1990 only), counties/townships, MSA’s, PMSA’s (1990 only), CMSA’s (1990 only), states, the entire U.S. summary, or weighted or unweighted combinations. Each job group can use one census area as its Reasonable Recruitment Area in determining availability.Research Lists
Research Lists are audit support tools used to help analyze and explain any adverse impact in the personnel actions or the salary analysis. Research lists include the members of a protected class who were adversely affected (not hired, not promoted, not transferred, terminated, or whose salary is below median), protected class members who were successful, and successful and unsuccessful non-protected class members.BALANCEaap allows you to fill in a comment for each employee or applicant in the research list. You can use these comments to provide explanations or extenuating circumstances, or other relevant information. The comments will print out on the Research List roster.
Rollup Reports
Salary Analysis
The Salary Analysis is actually a series of analyses that can identify salary inequities within jobs, job groups, or salary grades. BALANCEaap’s salary analysis reports represent the latest in OFCCP audit techniques – the reports generated by BALANCEaap are the same as those prepared by the OFCCP when auditing your plan. The Salary Analysis is a useful audit support tool, and can be especially effective when used in conjunction with BALANCEaap’s Research List tool.Salary Grade
Salary grades are groups of jobs with similar compensation structures. Salary grades are used to sort jobs in the Work Force Analysis and Job Group Analysis.
Sector Reports
Sector or Communication Reports are management tools that can be used to show individual department, division, or cost center heads how they are doing. A plan can be broken into sectors by departments. Sectors can also be defined in terms of other sectors, allowing for “roll-ups” into the total plan level. Sector reports all use the availability calculated for the whole plan, but each sector report calculates its own Job Group Analysis and Work Force Analysis. Thus each sector report has its own Utilization Analysis. Also, if valid department information is present in the personnel actions files, personnel action summaries and the goal attainment report may be printed by sector.Start Point Analysis
The Start Point Analysis is an estimation of the prior year’s affirmative action plan based on the current roster and the personnel actions that occurred during the plan date range. The Start Point Analysis is generated by taking the roster and “rolling back” the personnel actions. Hires are removed from the roster, terminations are added to the roster, and promotions and transfers are undone. The end result, if the personnel action files are complete and accurate, should be equal to last year’s roster.Sub Plan
For organizations with multiple locations, a Sub Plan represents a location plan. While a group of sub plans is controlled by a Master Plan, customization is available at the sub-plan level.Utilization Rule
OFCCP has approved a series of Utilization Rules for use in comparing employment and availability to determine if a placement goal will be set. The rules include:- Any Difference
- Whole Person
- Eighty Percent
- Significant Difference