 "Tata Steel dismisses 35 for 'unacceptable practices', says ethics priority")
Tata Steel has dismissed 35 people for “unacceptable practices bordering on ethical issues”, company chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said on Wednesday, responding to shareholder queries and days after announcing bans on certain employees at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
Tata Steel last year received 875 complaints, of which 158 were related to whistleblower complaints, 48 about safety and 669 for human resources or behaviour. The complaints were made at Tata Steel standalone and its subsidiaries in India and abroad.
“Out of these complaints, we have taken action against 38 people who have been dismissed from the company: 3 due to sexual harassment, 35 due to other unacceptable practices bordering on ethical issues,” said Chandrasekaran at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM).
“As a company, we are a global benchmark so we will continue to push a culture where we will uphold the highest values and will have a zero-tolerance policy.”
Chandrasekaran said a combination of factors could see an increase in the number of complaints reported, “which is a good thing”.
Tata Steel has made significant acquisitions in the past few years. “We are amalgamating three or four companies—whether it is Bhushan (Steel), Usha Martin, NINL (Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd). All of these companies are getting integrated.”
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“Second thing is, we are having a drive towards an open culture where every employee expresses his or her concern in whatever area it is – it may be sexual harassment, employee grievance, a practice that they notice in the company that they feel is not correct by certain individuals. All of those things we are encouraging across the board to record.”
It was reported last week that at the AGM of TCS, Chandrasekaran said six employees and six business associates (recruitment firms) of the IT services firm had been banned.
At the Tata Steel AGM, he said safety is a priority. The comments came on the back of a steam leak at Tata Steel’s Meramandali power plant in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district last month injured workers.
“Every industrial company has a higher level of risk due to safety because they work in factory set-up with machineries involved, movement of goods involved and they also employ a large number of contractors. So we have taken a number of steps,” Chandrasekaran said.
He said that a team of about 50 people comprising the chief executive officers (CEO) of top group companies, their key leaders, and people from safety teams has for two years been driving the goal of zero fatality.
“They engage not only among themselves, they engage with the international teams to get the best practices. And this process is on. Unfortunately, we still have fatalities. And it is also sad to see these fatalities many times due to human error,” he said.
The group was considering appointing a chief safety officer to drive the importance of safety across companies.
“Whether it is ethics, whether it is safety, these are top priorities for us across the group. And a number of steps are being taken and hopefully we will deeply embed it in the culture more and more,” Chandrasekaran said.
“As we are scaling and acquiring new companies the integration will require these things to be reinforced,” he added.