Both Sides of Affirmative Action in the Workplace

When it comes to discrimination in hiring, affirmative action programs both helps and hinders the avoidance of such things. For example, in hiring practices, it is theoretically required by law that employers hire the best candidate or candidates to perform the essential job duties the most efficiently with the least amount of cost to them. If there is a company who notoriously only hires one sex versus the other even though both sexes apply, then affirmative action will help to curb this and help to even things out.

If there is a company who has many different types of candidates applying and the best one for the job is not a minority, but in this case because of affirmative action if the company has to hire a minority to fill a quota, then this hinders the employer and the candidates. First, the right person for the job missed the opportunity because the law stated the company had to hire a certain number of minorities. Second, the company missed the best worker because they had to hire a different candidate just because that person was a minority.

Affirmative action has also been known as reverse discrimination. This is because of the above scenario and this is when affirmative action begins to defeat the purpose of why it was created. In the above case, the company has now discriminated against the right person for the job based on the affirmative action needs rather than the qualifications of the candidate. To avoid this dilemma, it's best if the company aim its job announcements and advertising where a diverse group of people are most likely to be. This will allow a diverse group of candidates to apply and then hopefully the company will be able to not only hire the right person for the job but also meet its minimum required hired requirements minorities.