By Mark Adams
Federal contractors and subcontractors with federal affirmative action obligations have a responsibility to register and certify that they have an affirmative action plan in place no later than July 1st, 2024. [It is important to note that construction contractors are NOT subjected to this requirement.]
Covered federal contractors and subcontractors can visit the contractor portal landing page to get this process started at: https://contractorportal.dol.gov/
For federal contractors and subcontractors using the portal for the first time, there will be the need to establish an Account profile in the portal. To set up an account, companies will be asked to submit their Employer Identification Number (EIN), EEO-1 Headquarter/Company number, and EEO-1 Establishment number as defined on the portal online form.
If the covered contractor or subcontractor does not have the Headquarter/Company number and Establishment number, then the contractor can alternatively just check the “Identifiers Not Known Path” box and just proceed with keying in your EIN number. Doing so, will require you to key in your company information instead.
Company information collected during the registration process includes company legal name, parent name (as reported on the EEO-1 report), DUNS number, and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) number.
Upon registering your organization, the covered contractor or subcontractor can then log back into the portal to “certify” that each of their covered establishments have an affirmative action plan that covers those establishments via an online certification form that can be found after logging back into the portal. The certification form has both a “certification question” asking the contractor to represent that they are an:
- Entity that has developed and maintained affirmative action programs at each establishment.
- Entity has been party to q qualifying federal contract or subcontract for 120 days or more and has not developed or maintained an affirmative action program: or
- Entity became a covered federal contractor or subcontractor within the past 120 days and therefore have not yet developed applicable affirmative action programs.
After selecting one of those three options, the federal contractor or subcontractor will then be prompted to affirm the answer option selected and then check off to certify whether those establishments indeed are covered by a plan.
After checking the establishment and clicking on the “Submit certification” button, the process is then complete!
The Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has indicated that a covered contractor or subcontractor’s failure to certify its establishments can be grounds for initiating an audit of those locations.
There is a user guide that delves into these steps further. To access this guide, click here.