Preparing your affirmative action plan (AAP) for filing takes a lot of effort, but the work doesn’t end there. In our latest DE Talk minisode, we sat down with Chris Lindholm and Desiree Throckmorton of OutSolve to discuss what steps to take after you complete your AAP, including advice related to adverse impact analysis, outreach strategies, organizational training, and more! Let’s dive in with a quick sneak peek at the conversation!
Candee Chambers:
Let’s discuss the first item. What do you recommend with the investigation of adverse impact?
Desiree Throckmorton:
I’ll start that one. The adverse impact analysis is so important because it is showing where you have the potential disparities that impact given race or gender through your hiring process, your promotion process or termination process. But as I mentioned, that’s all data driven. So once the data tracking has been solidified and cleaned and showing you truly what’s happening in terms of who’s applying, who’s being hired, who’s promoting, once the data is… The integrity is there, then you can really dig into the analysis itself to determine whether there are disparities to then investigate further to understand maybe, “Why does that impact flag for a particular race or gender?” But it is so reliant upon having clean data to allow you to make any conclusions in terms of where to investigate.
Candee Chambers:
Exactly. And the clean data is the hardest part. Chris, did you have anything you wanted to add?
Chris Lindholm:
Well, and just trying to keep it super brief so we can keep on moving in that when I talk to contractors, I try to give them this big picture saying, “In the initial Affirmative Action plan, you are probably looking by job group, just overall hires versus applicants. You’re just comparing those pools.” But people need to realize that that’s the beginning, that’s not the end. Your ability to go into the different stages of the selection process and look for adverse impact in phone screening, in interviewing, and in hiring tests is critical. And I talk to so many organizations and I start to go into depth of that topic. And honestly, I get a deer in the headlight type of look. So, it just tells me that I think we still have a long way to go.
Candee Chambers:
Oh, you’re exactly right. And you do your adverse impact on the neutral and specific situations like testing, which you mentioned, but then you get into a more detailed disparity analysis or class-type discrimination, which creates another opportunity for looking at your data in a deeper dive situation. So, it’s not one and done, it’s very intensive. Agreed?
Chris Lindholm:
Mm-hmm. Always.
Candee Chambers:
Okay. Let’s talk about item two, assessing differences uncovered during the ever-present pay equity audits or pay equity analyses. What are your recommendations?
For recommendations on the next four steps to take after completing your affirmative action plan, listen to the full episode and be sure to check out OutSolve’s expert services to take the first steps toward proactive compliance. There’s one more episode left in season four of the DE Talk podcast – stay tuned!
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