For the past forty years, affirmative action has been one of the controversial public policies. According to Holzer (2000), affirmative action is any measures that help to correct the past or the current discriminations or to prevent discrimination from happening again in the future. Some of the organizations have their own organizational affirmative action programs (AAPs) based on various actions. Laws and regulations guide the actions in the programs for instance in working place regulations guides the employee selection process and ensure that there is no discrimination when conducting such decision in the organization.
The focus of I/O psychologist is to study human behavior in the working place and develop a plan that ensures that there are maximum proficiency and productivity. The aim of the action plan is to ensure the growth of the organization and repair the existing human problems in the workplace. The psychologists of I/O do a proper business analysis to enable them to establish necessary competencies that should fit specific positions in the organization (Doverspike, 2000). Evaluating and eliminating the potential candidates who may not meet the qualification is essential on the pre-screening process, therefore, saving time and money to the organization. Developing of a test is essential in measuring the competencies of the individual since it provides statistical data that enables the correlation of the test scores with the individual performances (Kalev, 2006). The action of the I/O psychologists allows all the people to witness the process in all the aspects in the job communication and training, therefore, avoiding discriminations, and ensuring transparency.
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The process of Recruiting Employees
One of the objectives of the I/O psychologists is to ensure the continuous flow of the employees that meet the job specification, therefore, ensuring productivity in the organization. The process of identifying a potential candidate for a specific position is difficult, especially when taking into account the vice of discriminations (Crosby, 2000). The I/O psychologists normally use the experience as the condition in which they will base their decision. For instance, when looking for someone to fill the manager's position the employing personnel may put five years experience as the requirement. The people having more than five years experience then qualifies to be the candidates while those below do not. The approach is transparent and does not show any form of discrimination. Another approach in this field is that of using regression. It takes into account the scores from assessment and manipulates it using a mathematical equation that will predict the performance of the individual (Holzer, 2000). The technique of recruiting employees in the organization plays a major role in ensuring that there is no discrimination of any kind be it gender or racial.
Developing training programs
I/O psychologists play an important role in the development of the training programs that ensure there is increased knowledge of the employee thus enabling good performance and better production (Spector, 2012). To avoid discrimination, the process starts with analyzing the job objectives while comparing it with the performance necessary for the job description. The analysis will help the I/O psychologist to come up with the aims of the training. Using the strategy, any employer who deserves the training will receive without any discrimination (Noe, 2006). Because the approach in use so that such a decision is arrived at is transparent and do not categorize people into gender or races.
The strategies are not outdated in any way. There are several organizations currently employing the strategies in ensuring proper performance and productivity. Another thing is the effort that the researchers and psychologist are putting to ensure that there is transparency in any activity in the organizations. The increasing productivity and the employees' performance are due to proper management and coordination in the organization that ensures a particular person have the opportunity to exercise a duty that is best in therefore maximizing the production of the organization (Spector, 2012). When there are no discriminations it enables the organizations to realize the highest performance and productivity because each individual have experience in a specific field will work competently.
Some few modifications are necessary to ensure that all organizations benefit from the strategies. One of the modifications is to design the regulations or conditions for instance in the recruitment process to capture all the organization. The need for the modification is because some of the organizations do not have such policies or regulation that guides them in conducting such activities like employment procedure. Lack of the policies or the procedure subjects the organization to discrimination thus affecting the performance of the employees and the productivity of the organization. In addition, there is a need to come up with policies that address all forms of discriminations by giving out a transparent procedure or regulation to handle the issue. Some of the discrimination, for example, racial or ethnic is still happening in most of them and there is nothing to do about it because there are no clear procedures to handle the case.
In conclusion, workplace discrimination became illegal in the year 1964, therefore, protecting the people from the process of application and attaining employment as well as retaining employment in the organizations (Spector, 2012). The affirmative action enables the organizations to have a variety of people in the organizations but some may perceive people who get employment through the affirmative action as incompetent thus affecting their ability to perform effectively. All the employees should receive training programs that help them reduce the discrimination harassments or bullying, therefore, promoting the harmony in the workplace resulting in maximum production.
References
Crosby, F. J. (2000). Sex, race, and merit: Debating affirmative action in education and employment. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Doverspike, D. T. (2000). Affirmative action: A psychological perspective. Huntington: Nova Science.
Holzer, H. J. (2000). Assessing affirmative action. Journal of Economic Literature, 38 , 483-568.
Kalev, A. D. (2006). Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American sociological review, 71(4) , 589-617.
Noe, R. H. (2006). Human Resources Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage, Tenth Global Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Spector, P. E. (2012). Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Research and Practice (6th ed.). Hoboken: Wiley.
