‘A tool to level the employment opportunities for all individuals’
An Affirmative Action plan or program is considered to be an organization tool structured to make sure that every individual gets an equal employment opportunity. A central idea underlying affirmative action is that with time, an employer’s workforce will usually demonstrate the gender, racial, and ethnic outline of the manpower from which the employer selects and employs.
Affirmative Action programs consist of a characteristic component that includes a number of quantitative methods that are designed to assess the framework of the workforce employed in a particular business unit and compare it to the structure of the related workforce.
Affirmative Action programs also consist of action-oriented programs. If women and minorities are not getting proper employment opportunities at a rate to be expected given their availability in the related workforce in a business unit, the employer’s affirmative action program should include specific practical steps that are designed to tackle this problem of underutilization of a specific section of the workforce.
Constructive Affirmative Action programs must also include an internal examination and reporting systems as a method of calculating the employer’s progress towards achieving the workforce that would be expected in the absence of any discrimination prevailing.
An Affirmative Action program also assures equal employment opportunity by systematizing the employer’s adherence to equality in every aspect related to the employment process. Consequently, being a part of its Affirmative Action program, an employer observes and examines its employment selections and remuneration systems to assess the impact of those systems on women and minorities.
An Affirmative Action program is therefore much more than just a paperwork exercise. An Affirmative Action program includes those strategies, practices, and mechanisms that the employer implements to make sure that all applicants who are qualified enough for a particular post and the existing employees are receiving an equal opportunity for employment, selection, promotion, and every other term and perks associated with employment.
Preferably Affirmative Action is an element of the way the employer conducts its business in a day-to-day basis. OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program) has found out that when an Affirmative Action program is addressed with this perspective being a powerful administration tool, there lies a positive relationship between the existence of Affirmative Action and the absence of discrimination in a business entity.