International Cooperation: We’re Part of the UN Global Compact

Did you know that at Abstracta we are part of the Global Compact Executive Council? We focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “Health and Well-Being”, “Gender Equality”, and “Decent Work and Economic Growth”. Get to know our main actions in this article!

We believe that when people work together collaboratively, we are better and can go further. We are united by the drive to expand our horizons, both locally and globally, in pursuit of a better world. This philosophy is at the core of our culture, which is why we joined the United Nations (UN) Global Compact.

In 2015, the UN approved the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development. It has 17 SDGs, ranging from eliminating poverty to combating climate change, education, gender equality, defending the environment, and designing our cities.

Launched in 2000 by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the purpose of the Global Compact is to unite the business world and the United Nations to “put a human face on the global marketplace.”

We have joined this global movement and adopted it as a frame of reference for our work, to always act with clear objectives. It’s crucial for us to make sure that we are contributing to a change that we understand as urgent. We do it step by step but without pause and without excuses, because we know that this is what the world needs.

The organization explains that although significant progress has been made, humanity’s current actions are not sufficient to achieve the SDGs set for 2030.

According to the UN, “MSMEs account for 90% of enterprises, between 60% and 70% of employment and 50% of GDP worldwide”. Moreover, in emerging markets, “SMEs generate the majority of formal jobs, which create 7 out of 10 jobs.”

The Global Compact’s mission is to mobilize companies around the world to align their operations and strategies to achieve international cooperation around the 17 SDGs.

“Business must be part of the solution as we tackle global problems,” emphasized Sanda Ojiambo, CEO and Executive Director of Global Compact.

At Abstracta, we are fully convinced that companies can be great agents of change. There is much to do about it from the technology industry.

For this reason, we chose to be part of the Global Compact. We focus on different SDGs to which we feel we can contribute the most and which are crucial for the UN at a global level. These are “Health and Well-Being”, “Gender Equality”, and “Decent Work and Economic Growth”.

In 2023, Global Compact invited us to participate in a network of SMEs in Latin America, and we decided to take part. We know that sharing our experiences, as well as generating exchanges on learning and strategies, is crucial to continue strengthening ourselves. All this to achieve our objectives and for inspiring more companies to operate within these frameworks.

What Can We Do from the IT Industry?

Often, the tech industry is socially valued as a space where only lines of code are developed, tested, and new products are continuously launched, with no objectives beyond business.

Thus, somehow, the tasks of devs and testers can sometimes appear devoid of purpose. However, we know that the IT industry is a crucial factor in building today’s society. Its developments are essential in our daily life and even shape the way we relate.

Technology is much more than technical devices. it’s the contacts it enables, the opportunities it creates, and the barriers it minimizes. When developed and used responsibly, it translates into universes of possibilities and new realities, capable of positively impacting entire communities and individuals worldwide.

At Abstracta, we believe it is urgent that all companies in the technology industry assume and take ownership of this responsibility. Why? To act in a committed manner, take advantage of the maximum potential of technology, and achieve the best possible impact.

In 2021, Global Compact arrived in Uruguay, the organization called us to be part of its Executive Board, and we decided to take on the challenge. this way, we achieved a very important milestone in our history: we joined its board of directors and officially adhered to the SDGs.

How Do We Concretely Collaborate?

We are a constantly evolving organization, with continuous iterations, and all the SDGs to which we adhere converge in our initiatives.

We have a People Care team, which is dedicated to accompanying the journey of each member of Abstracta. It is made up of specialists in clinical psychology, who are always available to accompany our team.

We conduct empathetic and passionate testing, taking into account the needs of our clients and also the members of our company. Always with our humanistic culture as a framework. Through our work and the way we carry it out, we contribute to community development to improve the quality of life of people and our environment.

How do we do this? Through multiple paths, looking both inside and outside our company.

Some of Our Actions Contributing to SDGs

✅In 2019, we signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), one of the pillars of Win-Win, which seeks to achieve gender equality in the business world.

✅In 2020, People Care developed a roadmap that provides a clear career plan and a salary calculation tool. This helps us to ensure a competitive and fair salary, which minimizes the impact of other types of bias.

We strive to offer a value proposition that includes a variety of benefits that promote health promotion and prevention. In the quest for creating a healthy work environment, we take the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) approach and generate spaces for joint reflection on different topics.

All these methodologies help create decent work, in which each person is respected and valued in their individuality, beyond their gender or condition.

Our culture has been highlighted in multiple rankings. Among them, we received an award as one of the best companies to work for in Uruguay by Great Place to Work (GPTW) for two years in a row.

We invite you to read more on the subject in this article.

✅ We proactively review salaries and transparent them. Addressing the wage issue from this perspective is key for each person to feel recognized and valued in their role. To know their growth possibilities and to perceive the profound relevance of their contribution to our collective purposes.

We invite you to read more about the transparency of our salaries in this article.

✅We offer free access to all Abstracta members to English classes and continuous training on our Abstracta Academy platform.

Our testers benefit from the continuous support and guidance of specialists in their areas and great leaders at Abstracta, who stimulate and promote their development in technical and core skills.

You can read how we drive the continuous learning and growth of our testers in this article.

We provide courses of excellence through our study platform Abstracta Academy. As part of our social contribution, we make them available free of charge to the families of those who work at Abstracta, as well as to participants of multiple social campaigns.

In this way, we extend access to knowledge and promote the labor reconversion of people in vulnerable situations who wish to receive training in technology. All this in order to enter the labor market and improve their quality of life. Most of them are women and migrants.

We invite you to read more about Abstracta Academy in this article.

✅We create and sustain the podcasts Quality Sense and The Everything Else. We disseminate content relevant to our industry for free, both technical and cultural, always in reference to the IT industry and the world of work in the digital age.

✅We promoted the ReconverTite program, to promote gender equality, increase employment, and expand opportunities to access a job that helps improve the quality of life.

This is an initiative that trains unemployed people living in the interior of Uruguay, mainly women or economically disadvantaged migrants, in testing.

We invite you to learn more about ReconverTite in this article. You can also learn about some stories of life and change driven by our program in this link.

✅We care for those who care and support co-parenting in our company, to help close the gender gap and support equal opportunities.

We know from experience that the system has major shortcomings in relation to ensuring that those who mother can work without obstacles. One of these shortcomings refers to the fact that most policies on the subject only include mothers and exclude fathers, which means that certain responsibilities fall more heavily on them.

At Abstracta, we offer special leave for parents and generate a family-friendly environment in all hiring modalities. We know that from work environments we can promote changes to integrate life and work and improve our quality of life.

We invite you to learn how we support parental co-responsibility in this article.

✅Female leadership. We believe that it is essential that hierarchical and decision-making positions be occupied by those who have the skills and knowledge to do so, regardless of their gender and conditions.

We believe in the importance of giving a voice to women working in technology, to inspire more people to challenge strongly culturally ingrained gender stereotypes.

As a result, our company is currently made up of a majority of female employees. Namely:

✔️El 60% of the people who make up the company.
✔️El 52% of those who make up the operational areas of technology.
✔️75% of the C-suite.
✔️25% of the directory.
✔️100% of CEOS of our spinoffs, Apptim, and Up Camp.

During the last few years, we obtained distinctions that fill us with pride, such as “Talent has no gender” (2021) and “The best places to work for women in Uruguay” (2022).

In a Nutshell

At Abstracta, we strive daily to create safe and mutually caring work environments.

This helps us create a strong community in our company, and positively impact the lives of our people, their environments, and the communities in which we operate.  

We generate actions in favor of the integral health and well-being of each person who works at Abstracta. And we try to inspire other companies to follow the same path.

We also promote and participate in social campaigns to promote our society beyond Abstracta. And we seek to contribute to the improvement of people’s quality of life through the development of impactful and quality software.  

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