Taking a step to further reinforce the culture of inclusion and to enable Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community to have equal rights at the workplace, Tata Steel has rolled out a new Humen Resources (HR) policy that enables from the LGBTQ employees to declare their partners and avail all HR benefits permissible under the Law.
Partners would mean people of same-sex living like a married couple.
“Providing equitable policies and benefits create a level-playing field for all employees and set common standards across locations. Research shows that people are more engaged with and committed to an organisation that has policies protecting LGBTQ employees. In fact, enacting LGBTQ inclusive policies have been shown to decrease the instances of LGBTQ discrimination at work,” said Suresh Dutt Tripathi, vice-president, human resource management, Tata Steel, while announcing the new HR policy.
Kulvin Suri, Tata Steel chief corporate communication, said this policy would be effective immediately and at all Tata Steel locations across the country. “Tata Steel and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) are the first two companies to introduce this all-inclusive policy respecting every human being,” added Suri.
Tata Steel LGBTQ employees and their partners (same-sex couples) will be entitled to benefits, like health check-up, medical benefits, joint house points, adoption leave, newborn parent leave, childcare leave, and inclusion in employee assistance programme.
Employees will also get financial assistance for gender reassignment surgery and 30 days special leave for the same. They will now be eligible to take benefits available under the company’s Take-2 initiative (a diversity initiative for career comeback only for spouses). Now any partner on a career break will be eligible to apply.
They will also be eligible for Tata Executive Holiday Plan (TEHP) honeymoon package, domestic travel coverage for new employees, temporary transfer policy, transfer and relocation that allows partner to travel and familiarise themselves to a new place. Besides, this policy entitles them to be equally eligible to be included in any event, big or small (may be an official gathering or an offshore corporate event) where earlier only spouses of opposite gender were included.
“We took the first step of launching WINGS at all locations. Thereafter adding to our long list of innovative D&I practices we are extending the benefits/policy interventions to all the diverse groups,” said Atrayee S Sanyal, chief diversity officer, chief group HR, and chief HRM (steel), Tata Steel. 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.
