Affirmative Action in any Organization

The purpose of Affirmative Action is to promote equal opportunities in various avenues of life and business. 

Affirmative Action refers to policies that consider color, religion, sex, as well as national origin in order to benefit a minority (under-represented) group in business, helping to decrease the historic discrimination within America.

Affirmative Action aids in maintaining as well as building a level-field in company expansion. Affirmative Action may also help to protect a business from certain future legal ramifications.

In addition to educational and governmental agendas, Affirmative Action is important in the workplace because it tears down barriers, aiding in promoting and creating talent that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. Affirmative Action also helps companies stay diverse with the ever-changing and rapid advancements of society; it has been said that Affirmative Action was put in place in order to compensate for past discrimination, persecution, and/or exploitation by the ruling class of a culture - or to address existing discrimination (Fullinwider, 2009).

Affirmative Action should not be confused as only protecting one or two minority groups, Affirmative Action is for all groups - the law does not separate one minority group from another; therefore, every minority group is protected (Cahn,1995). Affirmative Action is the primary legal tool in place that promotes minority groups otherwise discriminated against in history.

Because of Affirmative Action, minorities have a place in mainstream society, and have been accepted.

The opposing factors of Affirmative Action may include what the constitution states, “we must treat all people equally” and while Affirmative Action treats certain people unequally, it creates and promotes more equality (Mount, 2001). 

This may seem unconstitutional; however, it is a law, and it does promote equality within the US. Reverse discrimination may come to mind; however, by creating equal opportunities for all, a company actually allows itself to more talented individuals with different outlooks and experience, which may turn out to be valuable to an organization; by creating a diverse employee base, any company/organization lays the foundation for the future.

A diverse employee base offers more unbiased as well as better feedback that can only have a positive affect on an organization's public relations - a positive impact on a company's understanding of its customers/clients, as well as well as adding to a company's positive public image.

Affirmative Action laws advocate for all ethnic groups, as well as women, which will only create the positive public image that every company strides for.

Although Affirmative Action is not a clearly defined law; in addition, since a a society will never reach absolute equality, Affirmative Action does not have an end-date. Affirmative Action will continue to be mainstream in business, in education, as well as in other avenues of life.

In order to stay current with society, which includes giving all able members an opportunity, a business must implement an Affirmative Action plan to its company policies.

Affirmative Action programs outline specific actions to be taken to create a more diverse workforce; Affirmative Action requires employers to monitor their progress towards parity and to assess achievement of those goals. 

Understanding this, by having an Affirmative Action plan in place, a business protects itself with an active policy that creates equality, as opposed to a passive policy, which may come under fire by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), including anyone with a grievance.

An Affirmative Action policy serves as another blanket of security for a company.

One misunderstanding of an Affirmative Action policy is that it set quotas, when in reality, Affirmative Action simply requires businesses and organizations to investigate whether they have intentional or unintentional practices limiting minority employment and/or promotion.

An Affirmative Action plan in place will help to uncover these issues and more importantly, make it easier to establish a plan to resolve these issues.

Affirmative Action serves as a measuring tool for a company, it measures a company's success towards diversity, equality, as well as fairness towards all groups of people.

Affirmative Action policies will not limit a company in its advancements or hiring of employees. Affirmative Action creates a plan within a company in order to stay current in order to provide a fair and equal working environment as well as a positive image to the public that the company is committed to searching and employing the best-equipped individuals as employees.

Having this plan in place also conveys that the company will provide the same opportunities for these individuals to advance into a supervisory/management position.

Creating a fair and equal working environment for all involves more than verbally committing to excellence, a fair and equal working environment involves a plan as well as a visual effort by an organization.

Affirmative Action is that visual effort, and will also serve as a security blanket, protecting the integrity of the company.

References:

Cahn, S. (1995). Stephen Cahn on the history of Affirmative Action (1995). University of California . Retrieved from http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/Cahn.html

Fullinwider, R. (2009). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/

Mount, S. (2001). The United States Constitution. USConstitution.net. Retrieved from http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am14