Traditionally, OFCCP has required that records created to fulfill the agency's regulatory obligations must be kept for two years. For companies with fewer than 150 employees or companies with a contract or subcontract of less than $150,000, the record retention period is one year. (See 41 CFR 60-1.12, 41 CFR 60-300.80, and 41 CFR 60-741.80.) This answer is complicated by the fact that the revised regulations for veterans and individuals with disabilities require that contractors and subcontractors must maintain certain records for three years. This would include information on hires. There is no specific requirement that the voluntary self ID form must be kept that long, but it is not untenable that OFCCP would expect the self ID form to be kept for three years in order to verify hire data that must be submitted to the agency. The answer is further complicated by the fact that there are record retention requirements in other laws regarding items that are part of the personnel file. SHRM and other organizations can provide information on these other record retention requirements. And finally, we have seen situations where there has been a question about the accuracy of employee data being provided to OFCCP where a federal contractor has found it useful to be able to access self ID forms many years after employees were hired. Thus, there is no simple answer to this question. If you have the ability to retain the self ID forms while individuals remain employed by your company, you may ultimately find them valuable. Otherwise, OFCCP might say one, two, or three years depending on the factors I've noted above and how they interpret their revised regulations. A final note: once an OFCCP compliance review begins, ALL records must be retained until the compliance review is complete. You may want to discuss this issue with legal counsel to see if legal counsel can provide you with any insight on how long other types of information that become part of the personnel file is kept.

You can use this OFCCP audit checklist to ensure you're doing what is required to maintain OFCCP's regulations including VEVRAA, Section 503, and EO 11246. Or request a demo to streamline your compliance and recruiting efforts.