Council Meeting
Held Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Ms. Delia L. Johnson,
Co-Chair and Director, Office of Civil Rights for International Broadcasting
Bureau, opened the meeting with a few remarks and then asked the attendees to
give their name, agency, and position.
She thanked Era Marshall, Director, EEO and Minority Affairs,
Smithsonian Institution, for sponsoring this meeting.
Diversity Consultant
Ed Crenshaw, of Roosevelt Thomas
Consulting & Training (RTCT), presented an overview of their services. Dr.
Thomas has over 20 years of experience, has published 3 books (Building a House
on Diversity, Redefining Diversity and Beyond Race and Gender) and is considered
to be one of the pioneers of strategic diversity consulting and training.
RTCT focuses on the impact of strategic diversity management, towards
an organization's goals as well as awareness and respect in the workplace
for various demographic groups. During his
presentation, Mr. Crenshaw mentioned that strategic diversity management
and training could be an effective solution towards mitigating situations that
can escalate into expensive litigation.
Mr. Crenshaw indicated that his company has a national base of highly qualified facilitators and can provide a wide array of consulting and training services to federal agencies including:
* Diversity
* Sexual Harassment Prevention
* Cross-Cultural
* EEO
* Affirmative Action
* MD-715
* No Fear Act
RTCT offers a number of training methodologies that include:
*
Consulting
* Class-room Training
* e-learning
* Train-the Trainer Services
If you are interested in consulting and/or
training services with RTCT, please contact Ed at (312) 933-3341 or via e-mail
at ej_crenshaw@yahoo.com.
If you are interested in any of Dr. Thomas' books, please visit
the website at http://www.rthomasconsulting.com.
To view the presentation that Mr. Crenshaw used at the meeting, click on RTCT Presentation.
MD 715
Gail Demers, Acting Director of the Affirmative Employment Division at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, gave an update on Management Directive 715.
Ms. Demers indicated that EEOC has received over half of the MD-715 reports from federal agencies. The Annual Report on the Federal Workforce for Fiscal Year 2004 may include a chart, which sets forth information on whether particular federal agencies filed the required MD-715 and Form 462 reports. At the present, the EEOC plans to have the Annual Report finalized by the next EEO Directors’ meeting, which is scheduled to be held at the EEOC on April 19th, 2005.
As part of the review process and to provide technical assistance, EEOC staff members will schedule meetings with agency EEO Directors (both parent agencies and Second Level Reporting Components) to discuss the agency’s MD 715 reports. One of the questions that the EEOC staff will ask at these meetings is whether the EEO Directors have presented their agencies’ State-of-the-Agency briefings to agency heads. After the meetings, the EEOC will issue its feedback letter to the agency EEO Director. One of the Council members requested that any feedback given to 2nd level components be shared with headquarters. Ms. Demers responded that EEOC would take this suggestion into consideration and has since stated that the EEO Director of the parent agency will be copied on the letters issued to any Second Level Reporting Component.
A Council member asked about the quality of the MD-715 reports that have been submitted. Ms. Demers stated that she saw good-faith efforts made by federal agencies to comply with the MD-715 requirements, but that she would have preferred to see more emphasis placed on the identification and removal of barriers.
In
the future, Ms. Demers stated that EEOC might consider preparing a best
practices report on MD-715. She
indicated that EEOC has issued a report entitled “Attaining a Model Agency Program: Efficiency,” which
can be viewed at http://www.eeoc.gov/federal/efficiency.html.
Mr. Ponce asked what were the motives for EEOC to include in the self-assessment form (Part G) the questions regarding the making of ADR mandatory for managers. Ms. Demers responded that managers’ participation in ADR was crucial to the success of an agency’s ADR program and that agencies that lacked this feature may not have the necessary commitment from their top leadership for the EEO programs. Thus, a failure to require management participation in the ADR program may prevent an agency from achieving Model EEO Program status.
Ms. Demers clarified that EEOC has been considering implementing a “scorecard” for some time, but no decision has been made yet. She indicated that any “scorecard” would reflect the President’s Management Agenda.
Ms. Demers mentioned about the creation of a Working Group to develop an applicant-flow form and to get it approved by the Office of Management and Budget. This Working Group has met twice, and OPM sent a representative to the last meeting. Ms. Demers invited Council members to join the Working Group. She stated that without applicant-flow data, agencies couldn’t assess how successful their recruitment efforts were.
Ms. Demers indicated that agencies should be placing more emphasis on promotion and training initiatives. Those agencies losing their diverse employees shortly after they are hired are not helping their bottom line, and should concentrate on looking for potential barriers.
Ms. Demers indicated that the Annual Report on the Federal Workforce for Fiscal Year 2004 has a chart describing the employee representation in the Officials and Managers category for Senior Level (GS-15 and above), Mid-Level (Grades 13-14), and First-Level (Grades 12 and below). She pointed out the presence of an inverse relationship for most employee groups – as the grades went up, the diversity decreased. Ms. Demers opined that this should not be happening, since the First-Level category should be the feeder group for the other categories. Ms. Demers stated that this representational imbalance might be one of the causes why employees are leaving their agencies or are retiring.
Following is Ms. Demers’ contact information: 202 663-4555, and e-mail: gail.demers@eeoc.gov.
No
FEAR Act
Julie Ferguson Queen, an attorney with OPM’s Office of General
Counsel, gave an update on the No FEAR Act.
She mentioned that OPM had issued proposed rules on the
notification and training requirements in the February 28, 2005 issue of the
Federal Register, and that the comment period was open until April 29,
2005.
Regarding the first reporting requirement in accordance with
section 203 of the statute, she indicated that OPM had not issued any rules on
this part. Nevertheless, OPM could not
tell federal agencies to ignore the due date listed in the statute, which
called for the first report to be submitted by March 31, 2005. Thus, she stated that federal agencies had
two options: 1) submit a report to
Congress, EEOC, and the Department of Justice; or, 2) wait for the OPM
regulations to be published in the Federal Register. She did caution
federal agencies to check with their OGC’s for the appropriate course of action
to take. Since the statute does
not designate an enforcing agency, neither OPM nor EEOC will come knocking at
your door if you do not submit the report.
After OPM issues the first report, it plans to issue a best practices report in accordance with section 204 of the statute.
To view the statute, click on
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ174.107.
Mr. Ponce congratulated OPM for finally posting its
complaints information on March 24, 2005.
To view it, go to http://www.opm.gov.
Regarding the requirement to train all employees (including
managers and supervisors) about the rights and remedies available under the
antidiscrimination laws and whistleblower protection laws by September 30,
2005, Ms. Ferguson Queen indicated that agencies might just add the No Fear
information to existing training.
Mr. Ponce asked Council members to pay attention to the
section in the proposed rules that tells employees that, in the alternative (or
in some cases, in addition), they may pursue a discrimination complaint by
filing a grievance through the administrative or negotiated grievance
procedures. Mr. Ponce indicated that
employees who use the discrimination process have to make an election at the
formal stage.
Following is Ms. Ferguson Queen’s contact information: 202 606-1700, 202 606-2036, or e-mail: fergusonqueen@opm.gov.
Title VI Group
Doug Gentile, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, provided an update of the first meeting of a Title VI organization that he is putting together. He mentioned that about 50 federal employees attended the March 22, 2005 meeting. The members are in the process of drafting a charter, and their preference is to keep it as an interagency group and not a non-profit organization. Mr. Gentile indicated that this organization would stay in touch with the Council in the future. For additional information about the organization, you may contact Doug via e-mail at doug_gentile@fws.gov.