What Would You Do

Essay

What Would You Do?
You are Enterprise's police chief. Because of the growth in population and the corresponding increase in crime rates, you have determined that it is time to hire three more officers. In the past, your team has utilized traditional methods of hiring, and currently the Enterprise police force is made up of mostly white males. Because your department needs employees immediately, you are considering conducting a similar hiring search to those conducted in the past. This would be the quickest, least-expensive, and easiest way to fill the open positions quickly, so as to give the fastest respite to your overworked team. However, as in the past, it is likely that the majority of those who apply for the positions will be white males.
Alternatively, recent events have shown that it might be prudent to take a more affirmative-action-focused approach to hiring new personnel. The department would benefit from having more officers of color and more females to better represent the actual population of Enterprise more closely. This method would cost more in time and money, would require more effort in reaching out to specific communities and organizations, and would take longer. Although this means that the department would not get help as quickly as they would by doing it the "regular way," the added benefits to the diversity of the workforce would be positive for the department and the community as a whole.
-Which alternative do you choose when seeking to hire three new officers for the Enterprise Police Department?