Useful Answers.

An Affirmative Action Plan is a written management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity for applicants and employees. Affirmative Action Plans contain quantitative analyses designed to evaluate the composition of the workforce and compare it to the composition of the relevant labor pools. Affirmative Action Plans also include action-oriented goals.

An Affirmative Action Plan is intended to ensure that all persons have equal opportunities in recruitment, selection, appointment, promotion, training, discipline, and all other employment actions. It does not require you to favor one person or group over another. Evenhandedness is the key.

The short answer is you need an Affirmative Action Plan if your firm has a federal contract anywhere in the system that will likely generate billings of $50,000 or more and you have one or more establishment(s) with 50 or more employees.

Various entities at the state, county and municipal level may require your company to have a Plan. The thresholds for contract amount and number of employees vary among entities. Minnesota uses the 40 employees/ $100,000 contract rule.

Employers with written Affirmative Action Plans must implement them, keep them on file and update them annually.

The Affirmative Action Plan must show that good faith efforts to achieve your Plan goals in outreach, recruitment, promotions, training and terminations will be applied. Specific quotas are prohibited.

An Affirmative Action Plan means we are applying one standard toward all people, regardless of protected class status. The key here is hiring and retaining qualified workers who reflect the demographics of your target internal or external labor pools.

Everyone benefits from Affirmative Action Plans. They promote diversity and inclusion among individuals of various race, color, sex, religion, national origin, and other protected classes. There is a significant body of data that demonstrates that diverse organizations perform better than others on almost every metric.

Equal Employment Opportunity means all individuals shall be treated equally in all employment processes. Affirmative Action goes further than Equal Employment. Affirmative Action means acting affirmatively to remove barriers that limit those in protected classes. In other words, an Affirmative Action Plan seeks to level the playing field for women, minorities, individuals with disabilities, veterans and members of all other legally protected classes.

Absolutely not. Only the courts can set hiring quotas. This is done only when an employer is found guilty of discrimination. Affirmative Action goals only ask that an employer make a good faith effort.

If you are consistently applying Human Resource “Best Practices” you can be confident that you are generally in compliance with Affirmative Action regulations. Our experts will be happy to discuss specific issues with you.