InvolveSoft helps bring social responsibility to the corporate world
Because of this turning of public perspective, companies are starting to see incentives to pay lip service, at the very least, to the idea of public service and giving back to the community. And for their employees, working for a business that’s aligned with their values is significantly more important. That’s where InvolveSoft has stepped in, finding a way to encourage companies to focus more on community outreach while improving communication between employees and their managers.
It’s a concept that’s very personal to Saumya Bhatnagar, CTO and co-founder of the company. As a woman in the tech industry whose focus is coding, she’s faced her fair share of discrimination. “I’m an immigrant. I’m brown. I’m a woman. I’m in a chief level position. I have once been asked to my face if our company was so desperate to hire coders that they hired a woman,” said Bhatnagar of the challenges she’s faced making a name for herself and her company. She has accomplished a great deal, but she will always remain grateful for the positive role models and other supportive influences she’s had in her career. It’s because of the discrimination she’s faced from some, and the comraderie she’s experienced with others, that she understands the importance of positive leadership. “If one of my employees is staying late, then I stay late until he or she leaves,” she says. “No matter how long it takes, five minutes or five hours or five days, I’ll be there working right beside them, as a team.”
It’s the marriage of commitment to values and understanding of the need for effectiveness that has made her company so successful. Volunteering in the United States is something of a lost art, and she understands why employees need to feel ethically validated by their choice of employment, so her company effectively solves multiple problems at once by connecting the two. It’s great for employees because they get to involve themselves in the community and feel connected to their work, and it’s great for employers because the activities foster a feeling of community and belonging that simply can’t be manufactured but has to be built in a meaningful way. This leads to better employee retention, better overall employee involvement in the workplace, and therefore a more effective business.
There are many who see corporations as amoral entities willing to do whatever is necessary for the sake of profits, but Bhatnagar hopes to change both the perception and the reality through her vision. According to her, “you build a company to change the world. You’re not doing the job just to get the money, you’re going there to make a difference.”
