SoftServe Receives Corporate Engagement Award for the best Diversity and Inclusion internal progr...

01 November 2023 y.

SoftServe received a Gold for “Best CSR activity or program to support or develop a corporate reputation” from the Corporate Engagement Awards (CEA). The award ceremony took place on September 28 in London. The company got this award for its efforts in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), specifically for creating the Accessibility Service department. The department has been working at SoftServe since 2020. Five specialists at the team have visual impairments. The department focuses on accessibility testing of web resources, programs, and mobile applications that should be adapted for people with disabilities. In addition, it offers corporate training on accessibility testing, audits web resources following the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and provides recommendations on inclusion design for SoftServe’s clients. "This is the fourth award SoftServe received from the CEA and the first for our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. We've been working towards this direction for several years – we launched a call for impaired people, organized training for them, then we formed a department and worked on developing the offering of accessible testing services for our clients. Together with the Accessible Service team, we work with best practices in inclusivity and pay attention to web content accessibility. It’s important that the team is also involved in developing our pro-bono solutions and actively promotes the ideas of web accessibility among the Ukrainian development community," comments Mariia Kucherenko, Director of Corporate Reputation and CSR, SoftServe. The best corporate CSR programs were evaluated by 18 CEA judges with a wide range of experience in business and non-governmental organizations. Their main principle is to fairly reward participants who meet strict criteria. Among this year's winners in other categories are such companies as KPMG, AstraZeneca, Samsung UK, and others. The Corporate Engagement Awards is an annual award from the British magazine “Communicate” that recognizes successful and innovative collaborations of businesses. This year the award had such categories as: partnership, sponsorship, corporate social responsibility, time, communication and process.