Human resource managers' attitudes toward affirmative action directed at employment of women

Abstract

The survey for the study was carried out between July and August 2001. The study sought to determine the attitudes that human resource managers have toward affirmative action directed at employment of women. It also sought to determine the extent to which they are aware of the concept and the type of activities that they would support towards the implementation of affirmative action in their organizations.The respondents were drawn from organizations in Nairobi which have a position of a human resource manager.The information was collected using a structured and uniform questionnaire. Forty-seven human resource managers completed the questionnaire.

The findings of the study suggest that human resource managers are generally aware of what affirmative action is although the women were found to have a higher level of awareness than their male counter­ parts. Regarding their attitudes toward affirmative action, majority of the respondents was found to have a positive attitude with only 8.5% having a negative one. Concerning the type of activities that the human resource managers would support encouragement in their organization towards affirmative action, findings suggest that all would provide developmental training to all employees while none of them would advocate for the segregation of men's and women's jobs for valuation purposes. In conclusion, it was found that the female respondents scored higher than their male' counter-parts but this was to be expected since the issue was affirmative action directed at employment of women.