Paragon One is a team out of MIT (and Y-Combinator) that facilitates remote Externships to empower your employees to launch strategic projects with diverse students at scale without burdening teams and budgets.

We’re profiling industry leaders to gather their insights into the transforming worlds of DEI, social impact, and brand elevation. 

Madhavi Bhasin is a change leader with experience in successfully managing global programs focused on creating inclusive spaces and processes, social impact, and capacity building. As a people-centric executive with keen insight, perspective, and emotional quotient, Madhavi Bhasin offers 10+ years of experience building, refining, and integrating people-centric organizational processes and outcomes. Currently she is leading Okta’s diversity, inclusion and belonging efforts.

Prior to joining Okta, Madhavi led a global technology entrepreneurship program for young girls at Technovation. Outside her fun work life, Madhavi loves to meditate and spend time with her energetic kid.

How is your company appealing to Gen Z professionals from a career destination standpoint?

Two things Gen Z prioritizes when it comes to their careers are:

1. Flexibility
2. Purpose and transparency 

The flexibility Gen Z is looking for is more than just in where they work from and when, but actually in how they work. They expect flexible career paths and opportunities outside of traditional career journeys. 

With purpose and transparency, younger employees expect the companies they work for to live their core values and take action more than ever before. We’re seeing a shift from employee engagement to employee activism, with employees requiring action, and transparency around that action, from the companies they choose to work at.

What are some ways you've seen Fortune 1000 career readiness and internships change over the last few years? How have they become more accommodating?

We’re seeing an increasing number of returnships and parental leave support programs, as well as deeper partnerships with career readiness organizations like Year-up and COOP to source talent. In addition, companies are participating in more community mentorship programs to actively invest in skill and career building.

One way they’ve become more accommodating is through the removal of degree requirements for certain roles and offering training programs. We did this at Okta with our Business Development Associates (BDA) program to bring non-traditional talent to our sales organization.

How important is impacting underrepresented communities through learning and up-skill programming to your company?  Is this currently a key focus or will it be in the near term future?

This is a huge focus for our company and we have a number of programs, partnerships, and training to support this. 

1. Partnerships and programs: Our Business Development Associates (BDA) program was launched in June 2021 to bring non-traditional talent to our sales organization. As part of this program, we consciously removed the bachelor’s degree requirement for specific roles to focus on skills-based hiring.  Okta’s Equity Accelerator (EA) program was created with the commitment to expand economic opportunity and create pathways for careers in tech for and with historically excluded BIPOC talent. Annually, Okta partners with Genesys Works and Year Up for Opportunity Youth Internships. 
2. Training: We have training for managers on how to lead equitably and how to manage a balanced team. This is a critical piece in building a diverse company.

What’s the most essential employee engagement and DEI focus you see across the next 5 years for any brand in the Fortune 1000?

I see two areas that will be a big focus for DEI over the next few years. First is the return to the office. Many companies are pushing to bring employees back into the office to some extent but they need to keep in mind how to do this equitably. While hybrid work provides flexibility, it also requires some privilege to take advantage of that flexibility, such as access to childcare, ownership of schedule and calendar, etc. Second is shifting the focus on employee engagement to employee commitment. Employees need to feel they are treated and paid equitably, have career opportunities, and that their company has a bigger purpose. If they don’t feel that their employer is committed to them then they won’t be committed to the company. We’ve already seen this with things like quiet quitting and the great resignation.

What role does DEI programming and communications play in elevating your employer brand in the eyes of HBCU and HSI students?

At Okta, we have a general employer branding effort focused on attracting underrepresented groups, including from various universities. We work with a number of partners to bring in talent from historically excluded backgrounds and ensure our programs are thoughtfully designed to ensure they are inclusive of everyone and drive a sense of belonging.

Can you tell me about the project you're most proud of? How did you measure success?

I’m very proud of our annual State of Inclusion Report. We made the commitment to be transparent and hold ourselves accountable for our diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DIB) efforts in 2020, and have since released three reports. One of the most successful outcomes of this report is the continuous impact measurement of our DIB efforts. It helps us remain focused on programs that will address key opportunities identified in earlier reports, and enables us to take a holistic and continuous approach to our work, rather than just checking a box.

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Two things Gen Z prioritizes when it comes to their careers are:

1. Flexibility
2. Purpose and transparency