Tata Steel recognised as 'Gold Employer' for inclusive policy

Tata Steel has been recognised as a 'Gold' employer at India Workplace Equality Index (IWEI's) Top Employers 2021 for leading the way in LGBT+ inclusion. The ‘Gold’ standard signifies that employers have successfully embedded LGBT+ inclusion in their policies, hiring practices, external communication, demonstrating a long-term and in-depth commitment towards LGBT+ inclusion.

Atrayee Sarkar Sanyal, Vice President HRM, Tata Steel, said in a press release, “We are humbled to receive this recognition and acknowledge the contribution of every stakeholder in this journey. Tata Steel has always invested in pioneering initiatives to create a Diverse and an Inclusive culture. We have a target of 25 per cent diversity by 2025 and we are actively taking steps towards enabling an inclusive environment for our LGBT+ employees like equal benefits for LGBT+ partners, health care and gender transition support for transgender employees, gender neutral parental leaves etc. In the near future, Tata Steel will proactively work towards bringing in more talent from the LGBT+ community and co-create the way forward. While crafting the policies, we have closely worked with the community and all stakeholders. We are constantly evaluating all our processes, policies, digital, physical and legal infrastructure with a close lens to ingrain inclusion at every step.”

IWEI is India’s first comprehensive benchmarking tool for employers to measure their progress on lesbian, gay, bi, and trans (LGBT+) inclusion in the workplace. The index measures nine areas: policies and benefits, employee lifecycle, employee network group, allies and role models, senior leadership, monitoring, procurement, community engagement and additional work.

This is the second annual IWEI Top Employers list, featuring 72 organisations. A total of 26 firms have been recognised in the gold category, 18 in the silver category and 13 in the bronze category.

The Tata Steel press release stated that Tata Steel has worked consciously in overcoming barriers and has demonstrated its commitment in creating an equal and inclusive workplace for the LGBT+ workforce through pioneering initiatives such as equal benefits for LGBT+ partners which goes beyond just coverage for medical benefits and includes benefits like joint house points, honeymoon package, health care and gender transition support for LGBT+ employees, gender neutral parental leaves, structured interventions for actively scouting opportunities for LGBT+ talent such as recruitment drive for transgender trainees at West Bokaro, participation in RISE - Asia’s largest LGBT+ job fair, interventions for beating the bias and breaking gender stereotypes for employees and vendor partners, Wings - Company’s employee resource group, introduction of Indradhanush - the online safe space for LGBT+ workforce and allies to connect and more.

Tata Steel has actively taken steps to engage with the LGBT+ community at the grassroot level through its CSR interventions like drives to enable them to have identities of their own through photo ID drive, extending relief to the community during the lockdown to ensure their wellbeing under the initiative #ThoughtforFood.