Federal Contractors Program
Quick Reference Guide
for Contractors
How to Complete a Compliance Assessment
Submission under the Federal Contractors
Program
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1
SECTION 1 - FIRST COMPLIANCE ASSESSMENT ....................................................................... 2
What do you need to submit? .................................................................................................................. 2
Step 1 – Survey Employees ....................................................................................................................... 2
Step 2 – Obtain Access to the Workplace Equity Information Management System .............................. 4
Step 3 – Prepare your Workforce Data for the Workforce Analysis ......................................................... 4
Step 4 – Generate and/or Grant Access to your Workforce Analysis Reports ......................................... 4
Step 5 – Goal Setting ................................................................................................................................. 5
Step 6 – Summary of Goals ....................................................................................................................... 7
Step 7 – Submit First Compliance Assessment Information ..................................................................... 7
SECTION 2 - SUBSEQUENT COMPLIANCE ASSESSMENTS ......................................................... 8
What do you need to submit? .................................................................................................................. 8
Step 1 – Prepare your Workforce Data ..................................................................................................... 8
Step 2 – Generate and/or Grant Access to your Workforce Analysis Reports and Forms 1 to 6 ............. 9
Step 3 – Goal Setting ............................................................................................................................... 10
Step 4 – Complete the Achievement Table ............................................................................................ 12
Step 5 – Submit Current Compliance Assessment Information.............................................................. 13
FEEDBACK ........................................................................................................................... 14
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INTRODUCTION
This guide is intended to provide you with instructions on how to complete a compliance assessment
submission under the Federal Contractors Program. It is divided into the following two sections
depending on the type of compliance assessment that your organization will be undergoing:
Section 1 – First Compliance Assessment
Section 2 – Subsequent Compliance Assessments
A first compliance assessment occurs one year after the award of an initial goods and/or services
contract, a standing offer agreement and/or a supply arrangement valued at $1 million or more
(including applicable taxes).
A second compliance assessment occurs four years after the award of the initial contract, agreement
and/or arrangement, and subsequent assessments occur every three years thereafter.
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SECTION 1 - FIRST COMPLIANCE ASSESSMENT
What do you need to submit?
Your first compliance assessment submission under the Federal Contractors Program (FCP) must include
the following information:




A copy of your Workforce Survey Questionnaire – used to survey and gather your employment
equity-related data from your employees.
Workforce Survey Results – data on the results of the Workforce Survey.
Workforce Analysis – Summary Report and Detailed Report.
Goals – a completed Short-term Goal Setting Tool file and Summary of Goals Report.
Please consult the pages that follow for detailed guidance on each of these requirements.
Once completed, your submission should be emailed to the Labour Program of Employment and Social
Development Canada (ESDC) at [email protected] or your program officer.
Step 1 – Survey Employees
To better understand your current workforce data, you need to survey all your permanent full-time and
permanent part-time employees with a voluntary self-identification questionnaire. A sample
questionnaire and Frequently Asked Questions are available to help you draft your survey and can be
found at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemt-weims/emp/WeimsMaintInfo.jsp?cid=aide-help.
The Workforce Survey
You will need to prepare a self-identification questionnaire to survey your workforce.
Elements that must be included in your workforce survey
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
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Privacy Statement – indicate that responses are strictly confidential and are used only for
employment equity purposes.
Employee Identifier – ensure ability to identify the employee who completed the questionnaire.
Voluntary – indicate that responses to the questions are voluntary. You can make it mandatory
for employees to return the questionnaire whether or not it is completed.
Updates – indicate that employees can change their answers or previously submitted
information at any time.
Accurate Definitions – use official designated group definitions for Aboriginal peoples, persons
with disabilities and members of visible minorities as demonstrated in the sample link above.
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

More than One Designated Group Membership – inform employees that they can self-identify
as a member of more than one designated group (for example, a woman with a disability).
Alternate Format – indicate that the survey can be made available in alternative formats and/or
help is available to complete the survey successfully.
1. Prior to beginning to survey your workforce, it is recommended that you send a copy of the draft
self-identification questionnaire by email to the Labour Program at [email protected] for
review to ensure it meets program requirements.
2. Following receipt of confirmation from the Labour Program that the self-identification questionnaire
meets program requirements, proceed with conducting your workforce survey. The selfidentification questionnaire must be distributed to all permanent full-time and permanent part-time
employees.
Note: In order for your workforce survey to be meaningful, at least 80% of employees need to
complete it and return it.
3. When the survey is completed, you will need to record the following results:
 The number of self-identification questionnaires sent out to employees or the number of
permanent full-time and permanent part-time employees who were surveyed.
 The total number of blank, partially and fully completed self-identification questionnaires that
were returned.
 The number of fully completed self-identification questionnaires returned.
4. You must ensure that your survey results are kept up-to-date by providing the self-identification
questionnaire to:
 Newly hired employees.
 Employees who wish to change or update information previously submitted.
 Any employee who requests it.
5. You must also update the information in your database or in the Workplace Equity Information
Management System (WEIMS) to reflect new data resulting from the above mentioned activities, as
well as from employee promotions and terminations.
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Step 2 – Obtain Access to the Workplace Equity Information Management
System
WEIMS is a secure, cost-free, web-based reporting system available to assist your organization in
meeting its employment equity obligations as it relates to the collection of data, conducting a workforce
analysis and submitting the workforce analysis results to the Labour Program.
WEIMS facilitates the completion of your assessment. If not already completed, please submit an
Authorization Form to Access WEIMS, available at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemtweims/maint/file/download/FP-Form-AuthorizationToAccessWEIMS-20150511.docm.
Step 3 – Prepare your Workforce Data for the Workforce Analysis
For a first compliance assessment, you will need to create a text tab delimited file (employee.txt) that
contains your workforce data and import it into WEIMS. To assist you in creating and uploading your
employee.txt file, please see How to create .txt files under FCP Documents of the WEIMS Help page at
https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemt-weims/emp/W.2.3msM.1intInf.4%40-eng.jsp?&&cid=aide-help.
Note: In your employee.txt file, you may enter zeros under the salary column as the collection of salary
data is not required for the FCP. You will not need to create a term.txt and promo.txt file for a first
compliance assessment.
To further assist you in understanding the workforce analysis process, you may refer to Step 2-1:
Conducting a Workforce Analysis, Task A: Retrieve Relevant Workforce Data and Determine Gaps in
Representation at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/docs/Step2-1EnV3.pdf.
Step 4 – Generate and/or Grant Access to your Workforce Analysis Reports
Generate Reports
Once your workforce data is ready, you can then generate your Workforce Analysis Reports. To access
this step, please locate the Workforce Analysis Report section on the WEIMS Main Menu page where
you can generate and save your Workforce Analysis Summary and Detailed Reports to your computer.
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Grant Access
You may grant Labour Program (ESDC) officers access to view your Workforce Analysis Reports in
WEIMS. As shown below, on the WEIMS Main Menu page, under the Employer section, the Forms 1 to 6
and the Workforce Analysis Reports Visible to the ESDC Officers?, make sure Yes is selected in the
dropdown box, and then click the Change Forms Visible to ESDC button.
Step 5 – Goal Setting
For the first compliance assessment, your organization is expected to establish reasonable short-term
and long-term numerical goals for the hiring and promotion of designated group members to reduce
any gaps in representation for each Employment Equity Occupational Group (EEOG) where underrepresentation was identified in the workforce analysis.
Short-term numerical goals cover a period of one to three years.
Long-term numerical goals are to be achieved in a period of three years or more and are focused on
reducing gaps in representation that are not expected to be closed in the short term.
To assist you in this process, we recommend that you access the goal setting tools along with their
detailed instructions under FCP Documents of the WEIMS Help page at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemtweims/emp/WeimsMaintInfo.jsp?cid=aide-help.
Short-term Goals
The Short-term Goal Setting Tool is a Microsoft Excel file designed to assist you in developing your shortterm goals and to better understand how minor changes to the goals can impact gaps.
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The following are points to note when using the Short-term Goal Setting Tool:



The file contains four worksheets to set separate goals for each of the designated groups.
Information is entered in the blue and yellow fields only.
You only need to complete the information for those EEOGs where gaps in representation were
identified in your workforce analysis.
1. Begin entering information in the blue fields using the data from your WEIMS-generated Workforce
Analysis Summary Report:
 Column B – This will be the same for all four designated groups and is the number of All
Employees for each EEOG.
 Column H – This is unique for each designated group and is the Representation number of the
designated group in each EEOG.
 Column N – This is unique for each designated group and is the percentage external labour
market Availability of the designated group in each EEOG.
 Column O – This is unique for each designated group and is the numerical Gap between the
representation (Column H) and the labour market availability (Column N) of the designated
group in each EEOG. All negative gap numbers are highlighted in red in the WEIMS-generated
Workforce Analysis reports and are gaps that should be addressed in the next steps.
2. In the yellow fields:
 Column C – This will be the same for all four designated groups and is the Annual Growth (New
Positions) rate. Do you expect employee numbers to grow or shrink in the next three years? You
may use the average annual growth rate based on the data from the previous three years (if
available) or you can estimate the annual growth based on projections.
 Column E – This will be the same for all four designated groups and is the Annual Turnover
(Replacement of Terminated Employees) rate. Do you expect to replace employees who leave
your workforce? You may use the average annual turnover rate based on the data from the
previous three years (if available) or you can estimate the annual turnover based on projections.
 Column M – Enter the percentage hiring goal for this designated group over the next three
years. Ideally, short-term goals should be set to at least equal the current labour market
availability estimates (Column N) based on the workforce analysis results. You can use this
column to test and establish the short-term goals.
** Key consideration – Zero growth and zero replacements/turnover means no gap closure. Please
consider these numbers carefully. **
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Step 6 – Summary of Goals
You can access the Summary of Goals Report along with its instructions under FCP Documents of the
WEIMS Help page at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemt-weims/emp/WeimsMaintInfo.jsp?cid=aide-help.
The Summary of Goals Report is a Microsoft Word document to aid in presenting and explaining your
short-term and long-term goals.
1. Similar to the Short-term Goal Setting Tool, information is entered in the blue fields using data from
your WEIMS-generated Workforce Analysis Summary Report.
2. In the yellow fields, under the short-term goals column, you may copy your short-term goals from
the Short-term Goal Setting Tool completed in Step 5 to the Summary of Goals report.
3. Add long-term goals to the report.
4. You may also enter additional information related to goal setting under the comments column.
Key questions that the Labour Program will consider when examining your goals in your first compliance
assessment submission include:


Are your goals realistic?
Are your goals equal to or greater than the labour market availability percentages found in your
Workforce Analysis Summary Report?
Step 7 – Submit First Compliance Assessment Information
When you have successfully completed all of the previous steps, please submit your first compliance
assessment information by email to [email protected] or your program officer and include:




A blank copy of your final Workforce Survey Questionnaire that was used to gather your
employment equity data from your employees.
Workforce Survey Results – the following three numbers should be included in the body of your
email:
o The number of self-identification questionnaires sent out to employees or the number
of permanent full-time and permanent part-time employees who were surveyed.
o The total number of blank, partially and fully completed self-identification
questionnaires that were returned.
o The number of fully completed self-identification questionnaires returned.
Workforce Analysis – attach a copy of your Summary Report and Detailed Report. Also, please
indicate if you have granted Labour Program ESDC officers access to view your workforce
analysis results in the body of your email.
Goals – attach a completed Short-term Goal Setting Tool file and Summary of Goals Report.
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SECTION 2 - SUBSEQUENT COMPLIANCE ASSESSMENTS
What do you need to submit?
Your subsequent compliance assessment submission under the Federal Contractors Program (FCP) must
include the following information:




Workforce Analysis – an updated Summary Report and Detailed Report.
Forms 1 to 6 – workforce data at the national level.
Goals – an updated Short-term Goal Setting Tool file.
Achievement Table – a completed Achievement Table file.
Please consult the pages that follow for detailed guidance on each of these requirements.
Once completed, your submission should be emailed to the Labour Program of Employment and Social
Development Canada (ESDC) at [email protected] or your program officer.
Step 1 – Prepare your Workforce Data
For a subsequent compliance assessment, you will need to update and recompile your workforce data
that is stored in the Workplace Equity Information Management System (WEIMS) to include data on
permanent full-time and permanent part-time employees who were hired, promoted and terminated
after your organization submitted its workforce analysis results for the first compliance assessment. To
assist you in creating and uploading your employee.txt and promo.txt files, please see How to create
.txt files under FCP Documents of the WEIMS Help page at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemtweims/emp/W.2.3msM.1intInf.4%40-eng.jsp?&&cid=aide-help.
Note: In your employee.txt file, you may enter zeros under the salary column as the collection of salary
data is not required for the FCP. You will only need to create a promo.txt file if promotions were awarded
by your organization after the first compliance assessment’s submission. You will not need to create a
term.txt file for a subsequent compliance assessment.
To further assist you in understanding the workforce analysis process, you may refer to Step 2-1:
Conducting a Workforce Analysis, Task A: Retrieve Relevant Workforce Data and Determine Gaps in
Representation at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/docs/Step2-1EnV3.pdf.
1. You will need to update your employee.txt file to reflect the following changes that may have
occurred since your organization submitted its previous workforce analysis results:
 Ensure that you are using the National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2011 codes which are
available at http://noc.esdc.gc.ca/English/noc/welcome.aspx?ver=11.
 Ensure that you are using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 2007 codes
which are available at http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/subjects/standard/naics/2007/list.
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


Ensure that the data on women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of
visible minorities is updated to reflect new data resulting from newly hired employees and those
who changed their previously submitted self-identification information.
Add new data for employees who were hired.
Include the data on terminations for employees who left your workforce.
2. You will need to create a promo.txt file if employees were promoted after the previous compliance
assessment’s submission. You do not need to create this file if no promotions occurred between
compliance assessments.
3. You must ensure that after you select Upload an employee record set (employee.txt and promo.txt
files) in WEIMS, on the Import Employee Data page, under Import Options:
 For the Period Start date, use the same date that was used to generate the workforce analysis
that was submitted for the previous compliance assessment.
 For the Period End date, select today’s date.
 Select Compile Forms 2, 4, 5 and 6 by Occupational Group Only.
 Select Include National Forms.
 Select Compile Forms After Data Upload.
 Select Update employees.
 Click the Import the uploaded files button.
Step 2 – Generate and/or Grant Access to your Workforce Analysis Reports
and Forms 1 to 6
Generate Workforce Analysis Reports
Once your workforce data is ready, you can then generate your Workforce Analysis Reports. To access
this step, please locate the Workforce Analysis Report section on the WEIMS Main Menu page where
you can generate and save your Workforce Analysis Summary and Detailed Reports to your computer
using today’s date.
Generate Forms 1 to 6
Forms 1 to 6 provide the following data for your organization:
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
Form 1 – Report Summary – number of employees by geographical areas (national, province
and census metropolitan area) and employment status (permanent full-time and permanent
part-time).
Form 2 – Occupational Groups – number of employees by geographical areas, employment
status, Employment Equity Occupational Group (EEOG), salary ranges and quarters, designated
groups and gender.
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



Form 3 – Salary – number of employees by geographical areas, employment status, salary
ranges, designated groups and gender.
Form 4 – Employees Hired – number of employees hired by geographical areas, employment
status, EEOG, designated groups and gender.
Form 5 – Employees Promoted – number of employees promoted by geographical areas,
employment status, EEOG, designated groups and gender.
Form 6 – Employees Terminated – number of employees terminated by geographical areas,
employment status, EEOG, designated groups and gender.
You can access your Forms 1 to 6 under the Forms section of the WEIMS Main Menu page. Please save a
copy of each form to your computer.
Grant Access
You may grant Labour Program (ESDC) officers access to view your Forms 1 to 6 and the Workforce
Analysis Reports in WEIMS. As shown below, on the WEIMS Main Menu page, under the Employer
section, the Forms 1 to 6 and the Workforce Analysis Reports Visible to the ESDC Officers?, make sure
Yes is selected in the dropdown box, and then click the Change Forms Visible to ESDC button.
Step 3 – Goal Setting
For a subsequent compliance assessment, your organization is expected to update and establish shortterm and long-term numerical goals for the hiring and promotion of designated group members to
reduce any gaps in representation for each EEOG where under-representation was identified in the
current workforce analysis.
Short-term numerical goals cover a period of one to three years.
Long-term numerical goals are to be achieved in a period of three years or more and are focused on
reducing gaps in representation that are not expected to be closed in the short term.
10
To assist you in this process, we recommend that you access the Short Term Goal Setting Tool along
with its detailed instructions under FCP Documents of the WEIMS Help page at
https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemt-weims/emp/WeimsMaintInfo.jsp?cid=aide-help.
Short-term Goals
The Short-term Goal Setting Tool is a Microsoft Excel file designed to assist you in developing your shortterm goals and to better understand how minor changes to the goals can impact gaps.
The following are points to note when using the Short-term Goal Setting Tool:



The file contains four worksheets to set separate goals for each of the designated groups.
Information is entered in the blue and yellow fields only.
You only need to complete the information for those EEOGs where gaps in representation were
identified in your workforce analysis.
1. Begin entering information in the blue fields using the data from your WEIMS-generated Workforce
Analysis Summary Report:
 Column B – This will be the same for all four designated groups and is the number of All
Employees for each EEOG.
 Column H – This is unique for each designated group and is the Representation number of the
designated group in each EEOG.
 Column N – This is unique for each designated group and is the percentage external labour
market Availability of the designated group in each EEOG.
 Column O – This is unique for each designated group and is the numerical Gap between the
representation (Column H) and the labour market availability (Column N) of the designated
group in each EEOG. All negative gap numbers are highlighted in red in the WEIMS-generated
Workforce Analysis reports and are gaps that should be addressed in the next steps.
2. In the yellow fields:
 Column C – This will be the same for all four designated groups and is the Annual Growth (New
Positions) rate. Do you expect employee numbers to grow or shrink in the next three years? You
may use the average annual growth rate based on the data from the previous three years (if
available) or you can estimate the annual growth based on projections.
 Column E – This will be the same for all four designated groups and is the Annual Turnover
(Replacement of Terminated Employees) rate. Do you expect to replace employees who leave
your workforce? You may use the average annual turnover rate based on the data from the
previous three years (if available) or you can estimate the annual turnover based on projections.
 Column M – Enter the percentage hiring goal for this designated group over the next three
years. Ideally, short-term goals should be set to at least equal the current labour market
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availability estimates (Column N) based on the workforce analysis results. You can use this
column to test and establish the short-term goals.
** Key consideration – Zero growth and zero replacements/turnover means no gap closure. Please
consider these numbers carefully. **
Step 4 – Complete the Achievement Table
The Achievement Table is a Microsoft Excel workbook designed to assist your organization in tracking its
progress toward achieving full representation of the four designated groups. It gathers the data that was
submitted for the first or previous compliance assessment and compares it to the data being submitted
for the second or current compliance assessment to determine whether reasonable progress was made
towards decreasing areas of under-representation.
You can access the Achievement Table along with its detailed instructions under FCP Documents of the
WEIMS Help page at https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemt-weims/emp/WeimsMaintInfo.jsp?cid=aide-help.
Before starting to complete the Achievement Table, you will need to gather the following information:



The WEIMS-generated Workforce Analysis – Summary Reports for the previous and current
compliance assessments.
The number of employees and designated groups hired, promoted and terminated (flow data)
between the previous and current compliance assessments or Forms 4, 5 and 6 generated in
WEIMS at the national level.
The short-term and long-term numerical goals that were established by your organization for
the previous and current compliance assessments.
The following are points to note when completing the Achievement Table:





The file contains seven worksheets. You only need to data enter information into three of the
seven worksheets.
You will be data entering information in the blue fields from your WEIMS-generated Workforce
Analysis Summary Reports, Forms 4 to 6, short-term goals and long-term goals.
You always data enter information for the previous compliance assessment, then the data for
the current compliance assessment.
You may enter additional information related to goal setting under the Comments fields in the
fourth to seventh worksheets (Parts 4 to 7: Results for the Four Designated Groups).
Key questions that the Labour Program will consider when examining your goals in your current
compliance assessment submission include:
o Are your current goals realistic?
o Are your current goals equal to or greater than the labour market availability
percentages found in your Workforce Analysis Summary Report?
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o
o
Was reasonable progress made towards achieving a workplace that is representative of
the four designated groups?
If no reasonable progress was made, was reasonable effort made to achieve reasonable
progress?
Step 5 – Submit Current Compliance Assessment Information
When you have successfully completed all of the previous steps, please submit your current compliance
assessment information by email to [email protected] or your program officer and include:




Workforce Analysis – attach a copy of your current Summary Report and Detailed Report.
Forms 1 to 6 – attach a copy of your Forms 1 to 6 at the national level. Also, please indicate if
you have granted Labour Program ESDC officers access to view your forms and the workforce
analysis results in the body of your email.
Goals – attach a completed Short-term Goal Setting Tool file.
Achievement Table – attach a completed Achievement Table file in Excel format.
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FEEDBACK
The Labour Program of ESDC continually strives to improve its documentation and service to Canadians.
If you have any comments or suggestions on how to strengthen this document, please contact us at [email protected].
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