IWEI Recognised Tata Steel As Top Employer for LGBT+ inclusion

Tata Steel has been named a Top Employer for LGBT+ inclusion by India Workplace Equality Index (IWEI), the country’s first comprehensive benchmarking study to measure and enable efforts for LGBT+ inclusion.

IWEI Top Employers is the definitive list showcasing the best employers in India for lesbian, gay, bi, trans employees. Tata Steel’s place as a Top Employer 2020 recognises the Company’s commitment to advancing equality for LGBT+ people. Tata Steel is one of 18 organisations to feature in the Silver category.

Atrayee S Sanyal, Vice President (Designate), Human Resource Management, Tata Steel, said: “At Tata Steel, we believe a diverse and inclusive environment enables employees to express themselves openly thereby adding to the perspectives and collective wisdom of the organisation. In our experience, workplace diversity not only attracts the best talent, widens the talent pool but also adds to the organisational culture and business results.

We are proud to feature amongst the IWEI 2020 Top Employers for LGBT+ inclusion. This recognition reaffirms our commitment to foster a culture of allyship to actively promote LGBTQ+ empowerment and build a benchmark workplace.”  

This is the inaugural IWEI Top Employers list, featuring 52 organisations that have been recognised as ‘bronze’, ‘silver’ or ‘gold’, depending on their final score. Organisations participating in this Index make it clear that they support equality for LGBT+ people at work.

Taking a step further to reinforce the culture of inclusion and to enable LGBTQ+ employees to have equal rights at the workplace, Tata Steel rolled out a new HR policy last year that enables colleagues from the LGBTQ+ community to avail all HR benefits permissible under the law for their partners (people of same-sex living together) like coverage for child care leave, new born parent leave, medical benefits, joint house points, employee assistance programmes, domestic travel policy, health check-ups, transfer and relocation benefits, honeymoon package and more.

In line with the Company’s vision of enabling workplace for all diverse groups, in May 2018 Tata Steel launched WINGS, a LGBTQ+ employee resource group.

Thriving in a culture of respect, inclusion and diversity, Tata Steel has made significant progress in the field of gender equality and is working towards achieving much more. Tata Steel has set a target of having 20% women officers in the workforce by 2025.

Tata Steel’s vision is to be a truly world-class organisation that respects uniqueness of individuals to create a diverse and inclusive atmosphere. In keeping with the changing times, the Company has introduced several path-breaking policies, practices and initiatives for various segments of the workforce like five-day workweek, menstrual leave, sabbatical policy, Take Two to enable second careers, onboarding policy for person with disabilities, special conveyance benefits for person with disabilities and more.

The Company’s Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) programme started taking shape with the launch of a diversity group called ‘MOSAIC’ in June 2015. MOSAIC facilitates a diversity of gender, hiring and inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), LGBTQ+ and more. MOSAIC focuses on five pillars, namely: Sensitisation, Infrastructure, Recruitment, Retention & Development and Celebrations.