OFCCP and EEOC leaders offer insights on range of issues

In early May, employers had a chance to hear from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) Acting Director Michele Hodge and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Vice Chair Jocelyn Samuels at The Institute for Workplace Equality’s May Annual Meeting.

Acting OFCCP Director Michele Hodge

Acting Director Michele Hodge met with The Institute’s Advisory Board and with the participants in The Institute’s Annual Meeting. In the meeting with the Advisory Board, Hodge indicated the agency had done significant hiring and training of their field staff over the past 18 months. She also announced that in a recent move the agency has reclassified its compliance officers as investigators, which she believes more accurately reflects the skillset required by the positions. After announcing the change in title, she then went on to emphasize the agency was a civil rights enforcement agency.

Hodge then turned to the agency’s recent focus on construction, noting that it now has 40 megaprojects in which it works with contractors, unions, and others to collectively identify issues and barriers and the options to remove them with nine committees with prime contractors.