EMC India Center of Excellence (COE) has announced that it has won the prestigious NASSCOM Diversity &Inclusion (D&I) award at the Diversity and Inclusion Summit organized by NASSCOM today in Bangalore. The company won the award in the ‘Most Innovative Program’ category for its ‘Redefine Abilities’ program, an industry-first initiative that aims to mainstream disability at the workplace.
NASSCOM encourages, recognizes and honors IT-BPM organizations that have adopted and implemented policies, practices to promote inclusion. The focus for this year’s awards were how to strengthen practices and make them sustainable, get a perspective on the new emerging trends in India as well as a global view point.
EMC views diversity and inclusion as a business imperative and is committed to enabling an environment for people with diverse talents. The company’s efforts go well beyond promoting gender diversity to also mainstreaming disability in the workplace. Through various practices and programs, India COE has been sensitizing employees about inclusivity at workplace and in society, as well as creating opportunities to channelize diversity for success.
‘Redefine Abilities’ is a first-of-its-kind internship project in India for persons with profound disabilities. The program aims to empower persons with profound disabilities, take them one step closer to their career path and make them financially independent.
Receiving this prestigious award, Debashish Patnaik, Senior Director, HR, EMC India COE said, ““The NASSCOM D&I award is a testament of our commitment to creating a truly diverse and inclusive company. As one of the frontrunners in mainstreaming disability at the workplace we have designed the right infrastructure and ecosystem including assistive technologies for our employees with severe/multiple disabilities to help them advance in their careers and create an effective inclusion culture. This program has brought to the fore several success stories of differently abled employees in our company excelling in their work.”
With an objective to encourage a more diverse and inclusive workforce, EMC India established the India Chapter of Disability Empowerment Resource Group (DERG) in 2012. Driven by EMC’s employees, the objective of DERG is to assist EMC employees and their families by promoting awareness and understanding of disabilities. Through this initiative, EMC has tripled the number of disability hires over the past three years. DERG organizes various programs to encourage and empower the differently abled employee sat EMC and also to recognize the contribution they have made and to showcase their achievements.
The India Network of DERG has been successful in creating an increasingly inclusive environment within the organization by sensitizing teams and enabling them to adapt to working with differently abled professionals.
