Benefits of Affirmative Action

What are the Benefits of Affirmative Action?

Recruiters and Employers – Let’s see!

The benefits of Affirmative Action are a safeguard for companies to obtain Government Contracts and obtain Federal Grants.  Affirmative Action was designed to level the playing field between different social groups based on gender, race, class, sexuality, and so on. It accomplishes this by requiring government agencies and contractors to interview and hire qualified candidates from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Affirmative action yields many positive advantages for a workplace such as increasing opportunity, diversity, creativity, and productivity.

Opportunity

The main purpose of affirmative action in the workplace is to ensure everyone who is different has the same opportunity for employment as anybody else. Affirmative Action enables women, minority applicants, senior citizens, and individuals with special needs to get jobs for which they might not be considered.  Affirmative Action can be used during the interviewing process and a human resources professional has gathered a large and diverse pool of applicants from all walks of life for any given job.

Diversity

Affirmative Action is intended to diversify the workplace. Diversity is not just about racial diversity but includes gender diversity, age diversity and just a general diversity in experiences and lifestyles in all aspects of life. Many sociologists suggest that such diversity increases creativity and cooperation in the workplace, as employees must learn how to proactively work with different folk who have different attitudes and lifestyles or ethnic backgrounds. Many believe when a workplace is not diverse, employees tend to grow complacent and comfortable, which in turn most often can hurt their dedication to the job.

Expansion

It is often said that companies that commit themselves to building a diverse workforce historically have attracted a more high-quality candidates from myriad social groups, specifically minority groups and women. This has enabled companies to pick and choose the best candidates from a much wider field of applicants than they could if it was only hiring young, single, heterosexual white men, etc.

Productivity

Affirmative action has shown a vast boost in terms of productivity. This is because employees are aware of the expanded pool of applicants ready to apply for their job. Additionally, productivity increases alongside diversity because employees must get creative when working with co-workers from social groups with whom they have not worked before. This creativity in terms of interoffice communication bleeds over into creativity in terms of the execution of work.