Codelattice among Nasscom's top 17 companies promoting inclusion and diversity

Codelattice has featured among the top seventeen inclusive employers in the technology ecosystem in a recent compendium, ‘Rising Together: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion In A Changing World’, compiled by the Diversity & Inclusion chapter of Nasscom.

Some of the other companies featured in the report are Infosys, Wipro, Barclays, Verizon and IBM.

“Twelve years ago, I started my engineering career with Infosys and today we are in the same league sharing the center stage with Infosys,” said Vijith Sivadasan, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Codelattice.

INCLUSIVE RECRUITMENT

A couple of months into the lockdown, Codelattice decided to hire three employees with locomotive difficulties to its sales team. The plan, three years in the making, was a success and the employees have performed over and above the expectations.

The initiative was identified and applauded by Nasscom in the compendium focussed on hybrid employee and company culture models.

The company ran extensive sensitization and de-stigmatization sessions for its existing employees and ushered in the new recruits into an undiluted job profile in line with the employees without any physical difficulties.

“Just hiring people with disabilities is not enough to be inclusive. Unless we actively seek to understand, support and onboard them, their potential cannot be tapped,” said Vijith.

The three new recruits, one woman and two men, are all between the ages of 22 and 26 years. In what is their first job the company has supported them financially to set up an efficient working atmosphere at their homes.

Currently, the company has a promising ratio of 1:25 for inclusive recruitment and is on target to enhance this to 1:10 by the end of 2021. It also provides six extra ‘wellness leaves” to its differently-abled employees and has training and talent enhancement programs tailored for them.

“The differently-abled employees are a little more reserved about seeking help and need more support with social skills, said Vijith, adding that the new recruits are as efficient as any other employee in the company and that they just need more training.

Codelattice allows permanent remote work to employees with special abilities thus eliminating the need to commute back and forth from an office.

In the next stage, it is planning to recruit employees from gay, lesbian, transgender and queerthe communities (LGBTIQ) community.

“In the case of LGBTIQ, getting houses on rent is a challenge, so is it for the PWDs to find a house optimised for their mobility. Remote work enables us to engage these employees where they feel the most comfortable and supported,”said Arya Prasad, COO of Codelattice

People with disabilities bring special skills, focus and a fierce drive that makes them uniquely valuable to organizations. Codelattice has anti-discrimination policies in place and believes that sensitization brings more behavioural changes than enforcement.

At Present, 42% of the workforce and 70% of the top management at Codelattice are women.

The company has just started the journey and is constantly exploring ways to create a more inclusive environment by hosting mentoring programs that actively match participants across genders, races, ages, physical disability and sexual identities.

The company has also walked its talk by eliminating dress codes in company meetings and gatherings, thereby avoiding gender stereotypes and holds proactive diversity programs that require the participation of the entire organization.

About Codellatice :

Codelattice is a technology solution provider headquartered in Calicut, Kerala, and was established in 2009. We are a team of 200+ technocrats spread across 8 countries. We help our clients to activate, elevate, and accelerate their endeavors.

Guided by a decade of experience, Codelattice offers customizable digital solutions, off-shelf software products, and bespoke IT services. By partnering with industry pioneers such as Google Cloud, GoDaddy & AWS we provide the imperative digital edge.