Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - Opening Day

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8:30 am to 9:30 am

General Session - How Raytheon Won the 2007 Secretary of Labor's Opportunity Award

Tanya Lewis, Raytheon

The Corporate Compliance Program is rarely viewed as an essential enabler critical to the operational success of a company. Raytheon Company created a compliance program that assessed key strategic drivers, the tactical elements and operational mechanics of the business and HR, and the company’s culture and values.  This integration resulted in an extraordinarily successful compliance program that led Raytheon to have the honor of being the recipient of the 2007 Secretary of Labor Opportunity Award.  In this session, come hear the story of this federal contractor's incredible journey.

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9:45 am to 10:45 am	Concurrent Sessions
Concurrent Session 1:	Compensation Analysis for Small Contractors
	Javaid Kaiser, Ph.D., Director of Statistics & Technology, OFCCP Marika Litras, Ph.D., Senior Statistician, OFCCP
	Small contractors face unique challenges in conducting self-evaluations of their compensation systems. This session will provide a demonstration of compensation analysis methods that can be conducted easily using commonly available Microsoft Excel software. A range of tools will be covered including multiple regression analysis and data manipulation techniques to conduct non-statistical comparisons of employees.
Concurrent Session 2:	Recent Significant Developments in Affirmative Action Law and Procedure
	John Fox, Esq
	In this fast-paced session, Mr. Fox will crisply and concisely catalogue the major policy and practice changes at OFCCP affecting the "money issues" of importance at OFCCP: audits, production of Disparity Analyses for Hires/Promotions and Involuntary Terminations and Compensation Data Contractors turn into OFCCP in response to Notices of Desk Audit, and Affirmative Action Plan construction issues.
Concurrent Session 3:	Transgender, civil marriages civil partnerships
	Rich Escoffery Elarbee Thompson
	Full description coming soon
Concurrent Session 4:	Disability: The Unexplored Diversity Dimension
	Katherine McCary from SunTrust and Georgia Department of Labor
	Promising practices from employers engaged in the dialog on disability inclusion

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11:15 am to 12:15 am	Concurrent Sessions
Concurrent Session 1:	Wage and Hour Update
	Oliver Peebles III, Acting Regional Administrator, Wage and Hour John Bates, Director of Enforcement, Wage and Hour
	This workshop will highlight changes to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and include a general discussion of the Fair Labor Standards Act (including child labor, minimum wage and overtime provisions), Davis Bacon Act and Service Contract Act. Wage and Hour initiatives on educational outreach/compliance assistance and enforcement will also be discussed.
Concurrent Session 2:	Major Challenges of Compliant Recruiting: Best Practice Sharing and Guided Self Assessment
	David Scheffler & Kurt Ronn from HRworks
	The workshop will discuss major challenges of compliant recruitment faced by government contractors. With the changes in the regulations government contractors should not wait to see what their recruitment department is doing until audit. Instead a proactive approach should be used analyze the recruitment department prior to a scheduling letter. To assist participants in the process they will be guided through an interactive self assessment of their recruitment process. Throughout the workshop best practices will be shared related to compliant recruitment.
Concurrent Session 3:	Compensation Discrimination Law: the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. Why Employers Need to Worry About More Than OFCCP Investigations.
	Alissa Horvitz and Josh Roffman from Littler Mendelson, P.C.
	This session provides an overview of federal systemic compensation discrimination law, including OFCCP's Systemic Compensation Discrimination Standards and Guidelines, the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and proposed Paycheck Fairness Act, which are designed to more easily offer employees ways to address federal claims of systemic pay discrimination. The presenters will discuss what to expect from enforcement agencies such as OFCCP in this evolving legal landscape and also, and perhaps more importantly, what companies should do to minimize their exposure to private claims under the new laws.
Concurrent Session 4:	Diversity and Affirmative Action: Friend or Foe?
	Leigh Nason from Ogletree, Deakins
	This presentation will discuss how to implement affirmative action programs and address underutilization in a legally defensible manner. Examples of diversity initiatives “gone wrong” will be discussed and analyzed, as will diversity training pitfalls, opportunities, and innovative solutions for putting AAPs into practice.

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2:30 pm to 3:30 pm	Concurrent Sessions
Concurrent Session 1:	Testing
	Richard Fischer, Ph.D., OFCCP Psychometric Expert Shirley J. Thomas, Deputy Regional Director - Midwest
	An increasing proportion of the amounts being recovered for discrimination victims are coming from testing cases. OFCCP looks at Federal contractor hiring, selection, and related tests and selection practices as one part of the review, so contractors tend to focus on enforcement. But proper test use actually is much more important for non-legal reasons – it’s a business and productivity issue. Join us for a look at the “testing part” of a compliance review, including the meaning of adverse impact and test “validity”; what makes a test discriminatory under Federal law; and why it’s important to use a “valid” test every time, legal issues aside, with case examples.
Concurrent Session 2:	Managing Affirmative Action Compliance in Periods of Workforce (and Economic) Contraction
	Joe Lakis from EEAC
	Furloughs, layoffs, smaller budgets, and fewer recruitment and promotional opportunities don’t exactly provide an ideal operating environment for the practice of “traditional” affirmative action. But even under these difficult economic conditions, federal contractors remain legally obligated to refrain from unlawful discrimination and engage in appropriate affirmative action. This session will explore the kinds of good-faith efforts and action-oriented programs that federal contractors should consider – and which the OFCCP might expect – during times when little if any recruitment, hiring, or other placement activity is expected. The session also will feature a discussion of how contractors should adjust their “desk-audit” submissions to reflect current workforce and economic realties.
Concurrent Session 3:	The Home Depot Diversity Initiative
	Jeff Spratlin from The Home Depot
	Having successfully implemented The Home Depot's Affirmative Action Programs, the Government Compliance team was faced with developing and implementing the tools necessary for bridging the organization from Compliance to Diversity. At the direction of the CEO, and in conjunction with the the company's Corporate Diversity and Inclusion Council, the team developed a concept that would measure diversity across every area of the company, from the freight team, sales associate and cashier, to the Department Supervisors and Store Managers, District Managers, Directors and Regional Vice Presidents, all the way to the Chief Executive Officer. The team partnered with its AAP provider PeopleClick to translate the fundamental elements of each store AAP into a real time barometer that combines in one dashboard, all the elements needed for leaders to see where they are, where they are going, and how to get there! The Home Depot will present the best practices implemented along the journey from Compliance to Diversity, with examples from Home Depot stores that are helping drive Diversity in the Orange Apron.
Concurrent Session 4:	Test Validation
	Dan Biddle and Patrick Nooren from Biddle Consulting Group, Inc.
	For the first time in over two decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to review a cutting-edge testing case. On January 9, 2009, the Court agreed to review the Second Circuit’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano (2d Cir. Feb. 15, 2008) and will attempt to untangle one of the most complex Title VII cases ever. In this case, 17 white and 1 Hispanic firefighters sued the city of New Haven after they were denied promotion because the city scrapped the promotional test results because they had adverse impact against minority applicants and they were previously aware of other plausible alternatives that would likely have less adverse impact. This case brings about the difficult intersection between disparate impact theory, validation, the alternate employment practice requirement, and the 14th Amendment and will force the hand 8 Supreme Court Justices to frame positions that will likely shape the future of Title VII.

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4:00 pm to 5:00 pm	Concurrent Sessions
Concurrent Session 1:	EEOC Update
	Bernice Williams-Kimbrough, District Director, EEOC
	This session will address the type of charges/complaints the EEOC is receiving and what employers can do to combat them. It will also explore the issues and challenges facing the Agency; and the importance of effective, strategic partnerships in ensuring equal employment opportunity. A review of EEOC initiatives will be provided as well.
Concurrent Session 2:	Affirmative Action Law and Pay Discrimination after Ledbetter: The Increasing Focus on Systemic Pay Investigations and How Employers Should Respond
	Mickey Silberman from Jackson Lewis
	Full description coming soon
Concurrent Session 3:	President Obama’s New Disability Employment Initiatives – Exemplary Affirmative Action Practices under Section 503 and VEVRRA
	Bobby Silverstein, Powers, Pyles, Suttor, and Verville - Provided by ODEP
	Full description coming soon
Concurrent Session 4:	May the Reduction in Force be with you Planning your RIF in a Struggling Economy
	Christine Tenley and Gavin Appleby from Littler Mendelson, P.C.
	Unfortunately, RIFs still remain at the forefront of emergency measures being used by employers to survive the crippled economy.  Planning a RIF requires foresight into EEO matters and the impact on specific individual decisions and group analyses in RIF scenarios.  Implementing a RIF raises a range of EEO issues, from selection criteria to adverse impact analysis.  Does your organization have a plan and a systematic process to confront the EEO issues that arise from a RIF and to eliminate problems that lead to potential lawsuits? This interactive workshop will feature the top ten mistakes employer’s make when planning and conducting a RIF and provide guidance on how to avoid these mistakes and the significant liability that can result from them.

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