SoftServe joins “Business without barriers” community, united around the initiative of the First Lady of Ukraine

The "Business without barriers" community currently includes over twenty large Ukrainian and international companies operating in Ukraine. The companies share best practices and knowledge on implementing accessibility projects, work together to make barrier-free accessibility a part of the corporate culture in Ukrainian companies, and share their experience in this area with other businesses.

"I am grateful to all community members for the discussion and work in accessibility. I hope that our community will continue to expand until it becomes unnecessary because every business in Ukraine will be barrier-free," Olena Zelenska said.

Over the years, SoftServe has been consciously working towards advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. This involves implementing various initiatives to build a barrier-free and accessible environment for all, ensuring equal opportunities in recruitment, development, leadership and other stages of employee journey.

"Today, we are joining an important initiative of the First Lady and the community of socially responsible businesses in Ukraine. SoftServe has been working for many years to be among the best employers in the country and is building an environment where people want to work and produce innovative ideas. We aim to become a company with opportunities for professional growth for everyone ready to learn and discover new things. Together with the community, we are ready to share our best practices of barrier-free accessibility in Ukraine and implement new ones," comments Taras Kytsmey, Co-Founder and Board Member of SoftServe.

Among the key areas that SoftServe is working on:

Women in technical and leadership positions. Men usually dominate the engineering and technology positions, and for many years now, the company has seen a steady trend of growth in the number of women in the company. We have more than 36% of women in the company in general, and this number is growing by 1% annually. Speaking of areas, SoftServe has 30% of women in development teams, 59% of project and product managers are women, and 61% of business analysts as well. In leadership positions, the company already has 32% women.

Accessibility of the offices. SoftServe has about 40 offices worldwide - from Ukraine to the United States, from Mexico to the UAE and Singapore. In 2016, the company began integrating barrier-free standards into the basic requirements for all new offices. And more than 60% of them are now fully accessible to people in wheelchairs.

Hiring and working with people with disabilities. For several years, the company has had an Accessibility Service team testing digital products for accessibility for people with visual impairments. Most of the team's specialists are visually impaired. You can read more about the team and its work in the article on Diia. Business.

In 2023, SoftServe decided to share its expertise with the world and provide additional educational and career opportunities to those who need it most. The company launched a large-scale EmpowerU program, offering free IT courses in six countries for underrepresented groups: women in difficult life circumstances in Colombia, Ukrainian refugees in Romania, people with disabilities in Poland, and veterans in Ukraine.

In 2023, SoftServe was named one of the TOP 25 best employers for veterans in Ukraine, having developed a whole system of support for IT professionals returning to the company after defending the country at the frontline.