AAP vs. Nepotism

Jackie

I would like to turn around our habit of favoring family members over general public. We have an Affir. Action plan in place, but Upper Mgmt. leans towards family/friends. We currently have 2 minorities & 9 women out of 70 actively working factory workers. Company-wide, we have 3 minorities & 29 women out of 130 employees.

We use a local Temp. Service agency frequently, and usually end up hiring those workers instead of advertising. Usually someone has a friend or family member who is told to sign up at the Temp. agency & then we call them.

I would propose setting up a pool of workers, contacting WorkForce, 2 local minority/veteran groups & opening up to Internet JobBank, etc. and reviewing resumes of applicants to narrow down field before interviewing. I hope to bring in an equal # of women, minorities & vets so that our pool would have better representation. Then we would use the Temp. Service in various temp. openings that might lead to hiring.

1. Does this seem like a good approach?

2. How can I convince Upper Mgmt. (Gen. Mgr. & Plant Mgr. incl) that we can't continue to justify hiring family/friends over minority/vet/etc.

Gar

It seems to me that if you aren't meeting your AA goals, therein lies your argument to management. Depending on the type of work you are hiring people for, consider sending hiring notices to local churches frequented by people of color. Moreover, if there are Black and Hispanic newspapers in your metropolitan area, place job ads with them. You may also want to consider active recruitment at area high schools and colleges with heavy people of color populations.

Gillian

What you have is a clash over good ideas (yours) and reality. Some companies will not hire family members and friends on principle, others thrive on it. It is very much a company culture issue which will make it hard to change. If you can use the lever of AAP, that a wider pool of candidates increases the chances of finding the best candidate or any other reason that you can think of then go for it. The managers are probably hiring a "known" over an "unknown" and if they are happy with the outcomes, they will probably resist any change. AAP, short of an audit and resulting conciliation agreements, probably won't be sufficient to change any minds.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but you need to find out first if this is something that you can change or a battle that you will lose. When you bring up the issue you will probably find out then you can decide whether you should pursue it or go on to the next battle.

Down_the_Middle

It seems to me your strongest argument will be whether your current minority population of employees mirrors your local labor market. If it does, then Gillian's right-----decide whether this a battle to fight over. It you have underutilization, then that's probably your best argument at this point. Trying to interview a diverse group of cand's is commendable, but also a pitfall if you never choose any of them.

Don Avery

Getting results from an AA Program rests primarily upon Upper Mgment (including the Gen Mgr & the Plant Mgr). If their bosses are not holding their feet to the fire for reaching AA goals, then you don't have a ghost of a chance to change their behavior. Your role is simply to advise and consult on the law, to recommend policies and practices, to quantify and report on outcomes. and to place qualified candidates before them. Before I would spend a significant amount of effort on this I would make sure that I had a mandate from "upper Management", preferably in writing.