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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.

Adverse Impact Settings

An Adverse Impact analysis looks at an employment action and compares the selection rate of one class of applicants (or employees) to the selection rate of another class; the class with the optimal rate is considered "favored." To support this family of balanceAAP > Reports, the Adverse Impact menu stores settings that impact how results are 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 when an Adverse Impact result is approaching the significance point. (Five is the default number.)

By selecting a checkbox at the bottom of the menu, you can limit the favored group analysis for applicants to ensure adequate representation. After activating the setting, enter a number in the displayed field or retain the default setting of 5.

An additional checkbox allows you to apply a representation threshold of 2% before any class can be considered the favored 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.