Business demands predictability and abhors uncertainty. General Counsels want to know “likely outcomes” and timetables. Vice Presidents of Human Resources want to know what to do to comply and what not to do to unnecessarily increase the Company’s legal risk. I was just about to decide on this theme of regulatory agency predictability and reliability for this month’s column when I saw a Blog entry from Chris Lindholm (with Outsolve in its offices outside New Orleans) festering about the lack of predictability issue now emerging with OFCCP. Chris has his finger on the pulse of federal contractors, so that cinched it for me: I had to write about the problems that regulatory and investigatory change bring to regulatory compliance programs, especially when combined with a lack of contemporaneous transparency. But, I also want to write about possible solutions, and to not just decry the situation. Whining is very therapeutic, but it does not solve the challenge at the end of the day. The problem of predictability raises its ugly head, of course, because federal agency managers want to do whatever they want to do, whenever they feel like doing it…
THIS COLUMN IS MEANT TO ASSIST IN A GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE CURRENT LAW AND PRACTICE RELATING TO OFCCP. IT IS NOT TO BE REGARDED AS LEGAL ADVICE. COMPANIES OR INDIVIDUALS WITH PARTICULAR QUESTIONS SHOULD SEEK ADVICE OF COUNSEL.