Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs - Research Paper Example

Running Head: Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP A Research Paper Your Name goes here Professional Specialization Name of your professor Date Abstract The purpose of Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is to ensure that businesses are fulfilling the contractual requirements with Federal Government. The most difficult management challenge faced by OFCCP is to provide the compliance assistance to OFCCP clients. These clients may include employers, workers, job seekers, wage earners and retired individuals. Some of the major ethical challenges include the objective assessment of the compliance, judicious application of legislative clauses in case of a conflict, denial of legitimate access to information, delay in provisioning of assistance to a victim, neglecting a discrimination etc. The OFCCP is assisting the Department of Labor (DOL) like three other major programs Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, Office of Labor Management Standards, Office of Workers Compensation Programs and the Wage and Hour Division to address the diverse employment, compensation and labor issues. Assessed on the Porter’s framework OFCCP competitive advantage was found satisfactory based on the services offered to the society and the level of its performance as compared to other services providers in the market. 1. Purpose and Mission of the organization Businesses registered with federal government have a contractual binding to ensure compliance with government resolve to provide equal opportunities of employment to all job seekers and wage earner. The purpose of Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is to ensure that businesses are fulfilling the contractual requirements with Federal Government. OFCCP may also assist businesses for compliance through a variety of steps that may include technical assistance, compliance evaluations, reconciliations, monitoring and assistance in the recruitment of skilled and qualified workers. Moreover, OFCCP will ensure enforcement of law in case of contract violation and will provide relief to victims. (DOL, 2011) 2. Management Challenge The most difficult management challenge is to provide the compliance assistance to OFCCP clients. These clients may include employers, workers, job seekers, wage earners and retired individuals. Providing such assistance to the clients is challenging because it needs to get in touch with each individual and provide him with the professional advice in the light of laws administered by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The subjectivity in each case may need detailed deliberations and insight into the case before the management can ascertain the onus and degree of discrimination committed, penalty of violation and amount of compensation. 3. Ethical Challenges The above stated challenge of management gives birth to multiple ethical challenges. The manager is responsible for the enforcement of law that in most cases is subjective and a wrong assumption or misjudgment may lead to serious violation of socially and professionally approved behavioral pattern. Some of the major ethical challenges include the objective assessment of the compliance, judicious application of legislative clauses in case of a conflict, denial of legitimate access to information, delay in provisioning of assistance to a victim, neglecting a discrimination etc. There is no ethical code written for Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) specifically, however, ethical violations can be sorted out based on acceptable behavioral conduct and legislations available with the OFCCP for the conduct of its responsibilities. 4. Organization’s Web Presence The organization’s web site does not contain any extensive documentation regarding its ethical practices. However, the web site has mentioned the Office of the Solicitor as a source of guidance on ethical issues. This can be treated as an indirect source for assessing the ethical conduct of OFCCP. “The OFCCP has close working relationships with other Departmental agencies, such as: the Department of Justice, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the DOL, the Office of the Solicitor, which advises on ethical, legal and enforcement issues”. (DOL, 2011). 5. Organization’s ethical behavior There is not much information regarding ethical behavior of OFCCP on the internet. However, the Chief Strategy Officer at RECSOLU, Mr. Tiufekchiev (NACE, 2010) has uttered some negative comment about the organizational behavior, “OFCCP sends shivers down the spine of every recruiter that is held to its account.” These comments are quite offensive and raise serious concerns about the ethical behavior of OFCCP. Similarly, Ronn an industry experts responding to OFCCP audit notices to the companies observes, “The notifications came on the early side. Normally, the OFCCP waits for two years after a ruling has been around so that there is enough rope to hang violators.” (Ruiz, 2007). These comments seem to uncover misconduct on the part of OFCCP woven into its legitimate mandate of issuing audit notices. 6. Social Responsibility Despite of the rarely surfaced criticism, the OFCCP is fulfilling it social responsibilities to a reasonable extend. The discrimination may it be of any sort and denial of equal opportunity in employment is a social evil and cause to increase social disparities that results in social unrest and instability. The OFCCP is assisting the Department of Labor (DOL) like three other major programs Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, Office of Labor Management Standards, Office of Workers Compensation Programs and the Wage and Hour Division to address the diverse employment, compensation and labor issues. In order to extend its services to every segment of the society OFCCP has setup a wide range of its Regional, District and Area offices. These offices are providing extensive employment services to its clients and help to eradicate any discrimination that is committed by an entrepreneur intentionally or unintentionally. The program provides a thoroughly deliberated legal framework of assistance against discrimination and inequality. The program can exercise relevant mandate and authority on behalf of DOL and Federal Government. (Structure, 2011) 7. OFCCP and Porter’s Five Forces Porter’s five Forces framework can leverage the assessment of any organizational setup and its competitiveness in the market based on its productivity or quality of services. The framework analyzes the organizational strength against the threat of new entrant in the industry, suppliers, buyers, substitutes and competitors. These five forces can be used to determine the performance of an organization in a competitive market. (Duening, T. N. & Ivancevich, 2005) The Porter’s framework can also be employed on OFCCP to assess the competitive advantage its services are offering to the society and the level of its performance as compared to other services providers in the market. However, it is important to note that Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is a Federal Government department, which is providing services to a vast group of its clients that may include employers, workers, job seekers, wage earners and retirees of various departments. (Compliance, 2011) Therefore, it does not face any challenge of new entrants in absolute meanings. We can consider the rare occurrence when the Federal government may consider abolishing or reorganizing the OFCCP but it would remain a government department. However, we can consider any nongovernmental organization (NGO) as its competitor whose service standards in the domain of employment discrimination and inequality may surpass the performance of OFCCP. 8. The Use of Technology Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is extensively using technology to meet the requirement of the information age we are living. Particularly, the use of internet and other electronic communication means is employed at different levels to ensure quick communications with its clients. Additionally, the technology is used in various training programs that are conducted by the department. (DOL, 2011). 9. Decision-making The decision-making in OFCCP is proactive in most of the cases. The legislative framework under which the organization is operating provides well defined rules to instigate proactive measures to address the issues that fall under the domain of discrimination and employment inequality. However, there are instances where organization has to react certain social phenomenon that may happen to exist in the society. The reactive decisions may also follow the emergence of certain new discrimination pattern in the society. 10. Organizational Structure The organization works under the supervision of a Director. There are six regional offices and three divisional offices that are directly supervised by the director. Each divisional office has variable number of branch office to address specific organizational issue. (Structure, 2011). 11. Delegation of Authority The delegation of authority is systematic and well established in the organization. Each regional, divisional and branch office has predefined authority to carry out its specific function in the organization. (Structure, 2011). References Compliance. (2011). Compliance Assistance. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), US Department of Labor. Retrieved from http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/ofcpcomp.htm DOL. (2011). About us. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), US Department of Labor. Retrieved from http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/aboutof.html Duening, T. N. & Ivancevich J. M. (2005). Managing organizations: principles and guidelines (2nd ed.). USA: Atomic Dog Pub., NACE. (2010). To Collect Resumes or Not Collect Resumes: The Implications at Career Fairs. Retrieved from http://www.naceweb.org/pubs/SO05122010/resume_collection/ Ruiz, G. (2007). New OFCCP Regs Have Employers on Guard for Discrimination. Retrieved from http://www.workforce.com/article/20070725/NEWS02/307259996 Structure. (2011). Organization Chart. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), US Department of Labor. Retrieved from http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/about/ofcpchrt.htm Read More