What is Corporate Responsibility?
Corporate responsibility plays an ever more prominent role in business decision-making. Corporate responsibility is the way in which corporations regulate themselves and the values they espouse towards customers, employees and investors. Although corporate responsibility policies are sometimes mandated by organizations, more often, they comprise voluntary decisions made by the company’s leaders. These decisions reflect the values of the company and its employees.
What does Corporate Responsibility mean to IronRooster?
IronRooster’s mission is to empower healthtech entrepreneurs to succeed in order to improve lives and make a meaningful impact in the world. In keeping with this mission, our corporate responsibility consists of a number of factors including how we treat our employees, the role our company plays in society, and our company’s impact on the environment.
Responsibility towards Employees
As the founder of the company, it was always my goal to create a work environment where the well-being of our employees plays as prominent a role in decisions as the satisfaction of our clients. Over the years, we have found that treating our employees well also leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction. A positive work environment not only reduces attrition and improves productivity, but also tends to be “passed on” to clients in the form of a positive working relationship. In this sense, treating our employees well has evolved into a very effective marketing tool for IronRooster.
In addition to offering competitive salaries and a flexible work environment, we try to take care of our employees in other ways including offering them a variety of perks. These benefits include dor example healthcare coverage at a private healthcare facility. We also have fruit day Wednesdays, Thursday massages, a sharing economy-based platform for company equipment called Sharendipity, a merit-based procurement system, support for eyeglasses, team-building activities and much more.
Healthy lifestyle
We are keen to promote a healthy lifestyle among employees. Even those who do not know much about Hungary may be aware of the country’s significant contributions in math and science. Despite its small population of 10 million people, the country ranks 16th in the world for the number of Nobel prize recipients. Indeed, it was a Hungarian – János von Neumann – who was the conceptual inventor behind digital computing. What is perhaps less well-know about Hungary is its standing in international sports. Hungary has taken home 476 medals in the summer Olympic Games. This result makes it 8th in the world in the all-time medal tally. Even outstripping much larger countries such as Japan, Australia and South Korea. Hungary also placing it second only to Finland in gold medals per capita.
Sports are also important to IronRooster. In addition to fielding our own (European) football team, we support local world champion powerlifters, jet ski racers. Moreover we have a world champion Muay Thai kickboxer working at the company. In addition, we encourage fitness among our employees and offer memberships to several local gyms and swim clubs. We also support team members who participate in events such as the Ultra Balaton 100 km run around Lake Balaton.
Supporting the community
IronRooster is fortunate enough to have our headquarters located in a vibrant city that boasts many amenities. Our location helps us attract talent from across Hungary and other countries in Europe and has contributed significantly to our growth. Beyond supporting local sports, we try to pay our success forward in other ways as well. We seize every opportunity we can to help those who are less fortunate especially in the town where we are located. This includes supporting charitable foundations that help the disadvantaged.
One organization we support is Skool for Good – a foundation that focuses on children from low income families and orphans. We host weekend events at our office aimed at teaching young people how to code and to foster interest in IT careers. Another foundation we support is called the “Bravery Camp” . The goal of it is to involve children with cancer and other chronic illnesses in outward bound type outdoor activities. Either collectively or on a voluntary basis, the IronRooster team frequently supports other organizations. These could ranging from schools to the local animal shelter. Finally, due to our focus on regulated software, we have developed a good relationship with the local hospital and blood donation center who help in training our new team members. In return, we organize blood drives at the company when they experience shortages and have helped sponsor IT developments at the hospital.
Meanwhile, we are constantly searching for new opportunities and actively mentor start-ups and support start-up events knowing that these companies can be great investments and often become clients. Ideathon is an annual event that we help organize where young entrepreneurs and start-ups can pitch their ideas to investors.
Steward of the Environment
Before starting the company, Andor Farkas worked as an environmental planner and natural resource economist. Obviously this had a strong impact on his worldview. His advocacy for the environment permeates many aspects of the business he helped create. In addition to implementing such “low-hanging fruit” as going paperless, recycling, procuring water dispensers to reduce plastic waste, etc. the move to a new corporate headquarters and satellite office also took our ecological footprint into account. IronRooster’s headquarters was a grayfield development and involved renovating a 150-year-old structure that formerly served as a military barracks. The construction used renewable and energy efficient heating, cooling, and lighting augmented with solar tubular skylights for natural lighting.
When we introduced reimbursements for employees commuting to work, we noticed a gradual shift to more people driving to work. To counteract this and promote more environmentally-friendly modes of transportation, we began offering coupons to our employees who bike, skate, or use public transportation to get to work that they can redeem at local sporting goods stores. The new policy was so popular that we had to add another bike rack outside the office. We are now nationally recognized as a bike-friendly workplace. We have since expanded the program to cover rollerblades and other self-propelled forms of transportation.
Pay it forward
Our achievements to date stem from a combination of luck, timely recognition of opportunities, and a great team. For IronRooster, corporate responsibility is about paying success forward. We also taking care of our people, our community and the environment. At IronRooster, we try to achieve this in many ways and have instilled these values in our corporate identity.
