Management of Ethics

The Tata Code of Conduct and corporate values have been deployed in the company through Management of Business Ethics (MBE). The focus, this year, was on re-enforcement of Code of Conduct among all the stakeholders by the process of stakeholder involvement.

In order to enhance employees’ involvement in the process, many activities including, ethics quiz contest were organised during the Ethics Month – July 06. The understanding on Code of Conduct was re-enforced through a story based e-Learning module which was prepared in Hindi as well as English and was put on our Company’s Intranet and is being used by all employees. The interaction with the shop-floor employees with the Ethics Group was enhanced through Business Ethics Manthan programme organised through Knowledge Group. In order to generate confidence in the system, the importance of whistle blowing was emphasised and employees were encouraged to report any misconduct they observe, without any fear of retribution. A major step in employees’ involvement was taken by involving the office-bearers of Tata Workers’ Union in the MBE process.

The other stakeholders like vendors, dealers and distributors were also included in MBE process by involving them in various dialogues and workshops. A uniform policy for penalty to vendors was prepared for dealing with vendors’ misconducts. In order to involve the community for the success of MBE, a workshop was organised with eminent representatives of the various fields of the society to formulate a presentation module for MBE to take it to various levels of community.

In order to uniformly deploy various policies like Whistle Blower Policy and Gift Policy in their companies necessary support was extended to the Associate companies of Tata Steel. Eastern Region Ethics Conference was organised with CEOs and Ethics Counsellors of the Tata Companies of Eastern Region in order to share and learn various aspects of MBE. Eminent speakers in this field were invited to share their knowledge. MBE process was initiated in the new companies like Tata BlueScope and Tata Steel (Thailand) Public Company Limited.

The senior leadership team reinforces the ethical behaviour through various fora like the General Dialogue, Senior Dialogue, MD On-line etc. and encourages employees to bring to their notice instances of unethical behaviour. Punitive actions were taken against employees for unethical conduct, where necessary. The effectiveness of the process is periodically evaluated by the number of concerns received during that period and various assurance surveys conducted by internal and external agencies. These results are analysed and the necessary steps are taken to improve the system and processes.

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