Case Study: Citrix D&I Team leads enterprise-wide initiative for disability accessibility

Challenge

After two years of participating in the Disability:IN Disability Equality Index (DEI) Survey, we were still only scoring 90%, and Citrix wanted to get to 100%. Having had good success using "best places to work" surveys and awards to benchmark our DEI programs, I knew that focusing on getting to 100% would show us what “great” looked like.

The Disability:IN DEI survey looks a company's Culture & Leadership, Enterprise-wide Access, Benefits, Recruitment Activities, Accommodations, Community Engagement, and Supplier Diversity through the lens of disability accessibility. We were scoring 100% in every area but Enterprise-wide Access. To reach 100%, I knew there were some systemic changes that needed to be instituted.

Even though I am not a technologist, I have spent my whole career in Human Resources, Sales, and Marketing for technology companies and have expertise in strategy, project management, and operations. To improve our accessibility ranking in the DEI, I used these skills to establish and direct a comprehensive initiative on disability accessibility. My goal was to drive implementation of enterprise-wide accessibility for WCAG, ACA, EAA compliance. A key business imperative because we were in the process of certifying for FedRAMP and more than $100 million in Federal contracts and billions of dollars in private sector bookings required us to certify that our products were accessible for people with disabilities.

Action

By joining Disablity:IN’s Inclusion Works community of companies, I was able to learn best practices and have a peer group to see firsthand what “great” looked like. From the results of the two prior DEI surveys, I established 3 focus areas (Benchmarking, Product Testing for Accessibility, and External Commitments from our Leadership). I created and led an accessibility task force comprised of HR, Product Management, Product Design, Security & Compliance, Engineering, and Marketing. With the help of this task force, I was able to secure funding to stand up a digital accessibility function and implement enterprise-wide accessibility testing and training throughout the company to create a people first culture. I also established a partnership with procurement to evaluate all software tool purchases to ensure accessibility. Finally, external accessibility commitments were made by our CEO through the Valuable 500.

Result

We scored 100% on the Disablity:IN DEI and were named a Best Place to Work for Disability Accessibility. Plus, we secured our FedRAMP certification and more than $100 million in Federal contracts and billions of dollars in private sector bookings were protected as we were able to certify that our products were accessible for people with disabilities.

Skills Used

- Strategy

- Cross-functional Team Leadership

- Program Development & Execution

- Team Building

- Problem Solving

- Project Management

- Operations

- Measuring Success