The following content was developed as part of our new blog column, “Dear Berkshire.” Instead of trying to anticipate the challenges you're facing at work, we’re going straight to the source. Every several weeks, one of our expert consultants will answer a specific question about compliance, regulatory changes, and affirmative action -- submitted by HR professionals like you!
Q: We're still relatively new with AAPs. Working in a social services agency, we have a lot of local pressures to hire culturally-responsive staff who "mirror" the demographics of our clients. What are best practices to meet these goals while also complying with AAP goals?
A: Given how placement goals are required to be calculated, working toward your AAP goals should align your workforce demographics with the demographics of your local area. Placement goals are determined by making a comparison between your employment of minorities and women and the availability statistics, which includes external census data.
The external availability, is developed by the company first identifying the geographic area that the company recruits from. Each job title in your organization is then matched with an appropriate census code, which narrows down the census data to the skillsets staffed in your workforce. Where your employment is less than the expected availability for minorities and/or women by a statistically significant amount, a placement goal is set in the AAP.
Your responsibility is then to modify your outreach and recruitment efforts to try and reach qualified minorities and/or women in the job groups where goals exist. Because of the way placement goals are calculated, these efforts to make progress toward your placement goals should simultaneously work to align your workforce with the demographics of the local area, and your clients in that area.
See the Berkshire webinar for more information!
Next time you get stuck while working on your affirmative action plan(s) -- or maybe you get a question from a colleague that you’re not sure how to answer – remember that expert advice is just a couple of clicks away!
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