Appendix Guidelines for Effective Affirmative Action Plans This appendix applies the problem-remedy approach set Affirmative action plans are systematic efforts to implement equal employment opportunity policies by identifying and remedying race, sex, and national origin discrimination. Affirmative action plans are not isolated and sporadic remedial steps; they are deliberate organizational strategies for interrupting discriminatory processes and creating self-sustaining, nondiscriminatory processes. An effective affirmative action plan has the support of the organization's top leaders, who commit the organization to the objective of equal employment opportunity. The plan first diagnoses those aspects of "business as usual" that erect discriminatory barriers to minorities and women. The plan examines both the numerical employment profile of the organization and the organizational policies and practices that produce the numerical profile. Guided by an understanding of the subtle and overt forms of discrimination within the organization, top managers instruct appropriate personnel to design and implement the affirmative action plan. The affirmative action plan establishes nondiscriminatory values and procedures and sets goals, accompanied by realistic timetables that measure progress under the plan. Having demonstrated an initial commitment to the affirmative action program, organizational leaders allocate adequate resources for these tasks and demonstrate continuing support for the plan by using their power to grant or withhold organizational rewards for effective implementation. Affirmative action plans do not confine their efforts to identifying and "making whole" specific individual victims of discrimination; rather, they identify and change those discriminatory organizational practices and conditions that produce victims in the first place. Affirmative action plans are comprehensive instead of ad hoc. They combine an understanding of the discriminatory process, knowledge of the history, structure, dynamics, and even the "personality" of organizations, and strategies for effecting organizational change. They are not pat formulas that can be mechanically applied. They require the same skill, sensitivity, and creativity that go into any plan for introducing new organizational policies. Because each organization is different, the specific patterns and dynamics of discrimination are different for each. Similarly, the repertoire of antidiscrimination techniques is as varied as the forms of discrimination. Although the techniques that would work most effectively differ from organization to organization, some basic principles remain the same. Essential to the successful implementation of an affirmative action plan are: 1. Commitment of top leadership to create and carry out the affirmative action plan; 2. Extensive and accurate analysis of the organization's discriminatory problems; 3. Participation by all groups affected by the plan in identifying discriminatory problems and their remedies; 4. Comprehensive and well-integrated techniques and procedures for promoting equal employment opportunity throughout the organization; 5. Commitment of organizational leadership to overcome unforseen difficulties and organizational resistance; and 6. Means for defining and continually evaluating the effectiveness of the plan. These general elements of affirmative action plans are directed specifically to reorienting organizational policies and practices away from discrimination and toward true equal opportunity. Top Leadership Support Top leadership uses its authority and organizational resources to support change. Top leadership is visibly and personally involved in designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the affirmative action plan. Top leadership uses and supports qualified technical affirmative action experts in effecting organizational change. Affirmative action plans cannot produce thorough and lasting change without the support of top leaders of the organization. The reasons for such support may vary, and the consequences of these varying motivations may prove decisive. But whether that support comes from a sense of fair play, community pressure, the fear of litigation, or an understanding that discrimination saps productivity and reduces available human resources, the active and visible participation by top management and labor leadership in their organization's affirmative action plan is crucial. Their actions greatly influence the spirit and enthusiasm with which their organization implements the plan. Management and labor leaders can tangibly express their commitment to the affirmative action plan by personally announcing, expressing support for, and participating in its implementation. They can establish themselves as positive role models. Chief executives can make their commitment known through newsletters, appearances at organizational meetings, and pressure on second-level executives. Underscoring their announced support, leaders can provide clear incentives for integrating equal employment opportunity policies into the practices of all levels of management. They can explicitly link successful implementation of the affirmative action plan with organizational rewards, such as promotion and merit-pay increases, and penalize actions that obstruct the plan. Organizational leaders commonly delegate major responsibilities to equal employment opportunity (EEO) or affirmative action officers. Their task is not to implement the plan, but to assist the organization in creating the plan and then integrating it into the daily routine of the organization's officals. The organizational position and leadership roles of these key personnel are often subject to conflict and limitation. EEO officers may be seen by management as advocates for minorities and women, seen by minorities and women as representatives of management, and treated accordingly by each. In addition, all parties may perceive affirmative action personnel as advocates of the interests of one group over those of others. Affirmative action officers may be isolated from real decisionmaking power if they lack adequate access to top management. The resulting absence of authority can render impossible their already difficult mission. Another frequent problem occurs when top management does not view affirmative action officers as appropriate candidates for other important organizational positions. When chief executives overlook the skills of affirmative action officers, their positions become dead end jobs. Their lack of executive support and opportunity for professional mobility within the organization can undermine their commitment as well as their effectiveness. When affirmative action officers are placed in such isolated, no-win positions, the success of the entire program is jeopardized. One way to assure that the organization takes equal employment efforts seriously and that affirmative action personnel have sufficient authority and motivation is to place promising line personnel temporarily into the staff position of affirmative action officer. In other cases, successful affirmative action officers may be rewarded by being placed in new positions with line responsibilities. Such appointments communicate to the organization that successful implementation is linked to organizational advancement. Because the tools of management that are most effective in combatting discrimination are the same as those used in instituting new organizational policies in general, affirmative action officers should be well-schooled in organizational dynamics. All too often, affirmative action officers begin their work with little training or experience in management. Top leadership must carefully plan the training, functions, and position of affirmative action personnel. They must also commit the necessary support, access, and financial resources that go into any serious effort to implement new organizational policies. Replacing discriminatory processes with nondiscriminatory ones is a long-term endeavor. Top leadership must pursue with patience the goal of making equal employment opportunity an accepted and integrated aspect of organizational practice. Identify policies, procedures, and formal and informal processes that have discriminatory effects. ⚫1m Identify the effect of the external environment on organizational practices and internal climate. Identify the effect of the internal climate of the organization on minorities and women. Thorough and specific organizational self-analysis leads to thorough and specific affirmative action plans. Although effective remedies can result from trial, error, and mangerial instinct, a clear diagnosis of problems is more likely to underlie an effective affirmative action plan. Organizational self-analysis focuses on personnel decisions. It is these decisions that cause and perpetuate discrimination. Self-analysis gets to the human level by seeking to find out what it is actually like to be a part of the organization. It reviews the effect on minorities and women of such aspects of organizational procedure as: recruitment of potential employees; selection criteria in hiring (e.g., educational or experiential qualifications, application forms, interview procedures, testing); promotion and transfer procedures (e.g., career pathways, “fast tracking," seniority, training opportunities); wage and salary structure; employment benefits; layoff procedures; and disciplinary and grievance procedures. Most important in reviewing these factors is an understanding of the many ways, both intentional and unintentional, in which discrimination operates. Part A of the Commission's statement on affirmative action, Affirmative Action in the 1980s: Dismantling the Process of Discrimination, discusses at length how discrimination against minorities and women works. It describes race, sex, and national origin discrimination as self-sustaining processes of individual, organizational, and structural predispositions and policies that derive from past discrimination and perpetuate that discrimination, even unintentionally, into the present and, if unchecked, into the future. These processes are so deeply ingrained in the everyday actions of most organizations that it requires deliberate antidiscrimination strategies that take race, sex, and national origin into account to break this cycle of discrimination. But as the Commission emphasizes in the statement, more is required of such interventions than the mechanical creation of a new numerical balance. Attention to those processes within the organization that produce numerical results is crucial. The literature on affirmative action plans is replete with numerical measures of work force composition. These quantitative techniques for describing and predicting female and minority employment patterns are essential to determine whether and where discrimination may be occurring. These analyses can go beyond comparing by occupational categories the percentages of minorities and women in the organization with their percentages in the relevant available labor pool. They can include statistical techniques that describe, in terms of race, sex, and national origin, such variables as the rapidity of promotions, the frequency and size of merit increases, the numbers and types of employees supervised, and wage rates. Such techniques are, however, insufficient by themselves. Numerical inequalities are the best signal that discrimination may be occurring; they do not identify the interrelated and sometimes subtle discriminatory processes that produce them. To identify discriminatory processes accurately, organizational self-analysis requires both numerical (quantitative) and nonnumerical (qualitative) approaches. Describing and measuring the actual everyday beliefs and behaviors that produce disparate hiring and promotion rates is as important as examining the rates themselves. The kinds of activities that contribute to an organization's statistical employment profile include: the formal practices and policies of the organization, the informal policies and practices of the organization, the external environment in which the organization exists, and the internal "climate" of the organization, which is largely the product of the three preceeding factors. The Formal Rules The formal rules and policies of the organization are the officially approved procedures of organizational life. They include the formal, hierarchical structurethe official chain of authority and responsibility-and the rules for making organizational decisions. There are many examples of the ways in which formal organizational rules have discriminated in the past. Today, however, explicit organizational rules that intentionally discriminate are rare. Today's discrimination is more frequently perpetuated by rules that are fair in form, but biased in effect. This situation requires sensitivity to rules that are superficially neutral, but nonetheless discriminatory. One example of such a rule is a hiring standard that requires certain amounts of education or experience to qualify for hiring or promotion. When such education or experience does not predict job success, and when disproportionately few minorities or women have such backgrounds, the rule discriminates without the compensating virtue of accurate performance prediction. Similarly, rules "protecting" women against the rigors of manual labor may bear no relationship to women's actual capabilities or to the actual requirements of the job. By examining formal aspects of organizational decisionmaking that may be fair in form but that discriminate against minorities or women, the organization can set about instituting new, more rational, and nondiscriminatory policies. The Informal Rules The informal structures, rules, and procedures of organizations are sometimes more important than the formal ones in understanding discrimination. The informal rules and policies are unarticulated aspects of organizational life. They are not part of the organization's official decisionmaking structure, but are the informal practices that determine whether and how the formal rules are to be implemented. For example, an organization may have a carefully devised affirmative action plan that seeks to include minorities and women at all levels and in all jobs, while informal rules within the organization bar minorities from sales positions and women from outdoor work. Another organization may formally espouse a policy of aggressive recruitment of minorities and women at universities, while informally recruiters who are friends or former students of white male faculty may rely excessively upon the "old boy network" in their recruiting. Consequently, they may, even unintentionally, favor the white male proteges of their recruitment sources. Similarly, within the organization, white male managers may pass over minority or female subordinates while identifying young white male subordinates as candidates for the "fast track" within the organization. The fact that these white male candidates superficially conform more closely to the images of organizational leaders (who traditionally have been almost exclusively white men) disadvantages equally talented women and minorities. Because such rules are informal and perhaps contradict the organization's official policy, they may be difficult to identify. Nonetheless, their importance should not be underestimated in analyzing a problem of discrimination. The External Environment Another factor that exerts considerable influence on an organization's affirmative action plan is the environment in which the organization exists. The best intended efforts to implement affirmative action plans can fail when structural discrimination in the external environment of the organization creates barriers to equal opportunity. Structural discrimination consists of the cumulative effect of those seemingly neutral aspects of everyday life, such as housing, education, and |