Fostering a culture of innovation and high performance

At Tata Steel, leveraging human capital is a key business imperative and the principle of always putting people first guides the Company’s policies. Our constant endeavour is to foster a work culture that promotes collaboration, innovation, high performance and agility. This has led us on a path of a new world of possibilities, requiring us to work on a new set of challenges for a future-ready workforce.

A culture of firsts

We have 100+ years of strong legacy of working in alliance with our various stakeholders. To encourage open communication, diverse thinking, and advocacy, a new union was formed and recognised at Tata Steel’s Kalinganagar facility for the first time. We strongly believe that this historic move will further strengthen our culture of working together.

Promoting diversity and inclusion

With an intent to break the barriers, provide equitable opportunities to historically excluded groups, and catapult them to the mainstream, Tata Steel has maintained strong focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We recruited 1,100+ diverse talents, which includes a focussed hiring effort of bringing more than 100+ transgender talents into the organisation - a
one-of-its-kind and pioneering initiative.

Tata Steel has been recognised as Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Lighthouse 2023 by World Economic Forum. We also have been recognised as one of the “Gold Standard” Organisations by the India Workplace Equity Index and have been adjudged as the “winner” by “SHRM HR Excellence Awards 2022” in the category of “Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion”.

Employee empowerment

To bring further alignment with the cultural ethos of the organisation and to leverage our internal talent, we introduced 360° feedback, an agile behavioural assessment and Employee Referral Programme.

We have been consistently working towards enabling career growth and learning opportunities for our people. StepUP, our Artificial Intelligence driven internal talent marketplace has been facilitating people with projects and mentoring opportunities as well as providing scope to take up full-time roles, where people with the right skillset can seize the opportunity and have a chance at horizontal mobility. Ongoing learning and capability development practices were expanded in terms of reach and coverage, and new initiatives were launched to keep up with the rapidly evolving skilling needs. 16 new Schools of Excellence (SoEs) were added in areas such as Operations, Maintenance, Mining, Engineering & Projects, and Digital domains, taking the total number of ongoing SoEs to 41. Some of the older SoEs graduated to the ‘Advanced’ level in their journey to create experts in various domains.

Learning experience

Tata Steel has initiated partnerships with renowned content providers and new learning platforms to offer more choices to learners and enhance their upskilling experience. The conscious adoption of ‘Virtual Reality and simulation-based training’ has enabled experiential learning for our employees. Vendor skill development was also given greater focus, with almost 1,00,000 assessments being carried out across all locations in India. The courses at our Academy in the Netherlands are highly ranked in the Keuzegids, an independent consumer guide. With all these efforts and many more, almost the entire employee base was impacted through one or more learning interventions.

Tata Steel has been investing in optimising business processes and systems through automation, mechanisation, and digitalisation. This has helped improve the overall productivity from 850 tonnes of crude steel/employee/year to 885 tonnes of crude steel/employee/year for Tata Steel Limited.

As we look ahead, we are confident that our talented and dedicated workforce will enable us to achieve our goals and make a positive impact on our customers, community, and the world.

For our continuous commitment towards a progressive people-first approach, Tata Steel has been recognised as a Great Place to Work for the 6th consecutive year by Great Place To Work®.

Human rights

Tata Steel is committed to responsible mining and manufacturing and has pledged to uphold the human rights and interests of all vulnerable communities, including the indigenous communities, in the proximity of its value chain. The Tata Code of Conduct, lays down the principles and standards that should govern the actions of the Company and its employees and emphasises Tata Group’s commitment to labour standards and Human Rights. Tata Steel has adopted the Business and Human Rights Policy and institutionalised a governance structure for the deployment of the Policy.

An Apex Business & Human Rights Committee has been formed to oversee Human Rights commitments.

Tata Steel has engaged an independent third party to conduct human rights due diligence of its entire value chain, which aims to understand issues related to human rights and locate the affected vulnerable groups.

Prioritising safety

Tata Steel’s safety and health responsibilities are driven by our commitment to zero harm to the people we work with, and the community at large. We endeavour to achieve this objective through a robust safety management system framework and a sound safety governance structure.

Our organisation has a strong system of governance that is overseen by the Safety, Health, and Environment Committee of the Board.

Safety priorities

We have identified six key long-term safety strategic priorities which have been described in detail in the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report. As part of the Safety Excellence Journey, we have launched several initiatives with an objective to "Achieve Zero Harm" in Tata Steel India by 2030.

With an objective to improve the risk perception of the workforce, a Practical Safety Training Centre has been established at Jamshedpur. The Safety Leadership Development Centre in Jamshedpur is fully operational and covers both our employees and those of our contractors. We are currently in the process of extending these facilities to Kalinganagar and Meramandali. Additionally, Felt Leadership 2.0 was launched to enhance the safety leadership competency of our officers.

Tata Steel places significant emphasis on the use of digital tools and technology for reducing safety exposure and risks, including standardising technological interventions for critical equipment such as Electric Overhead Travelling Cranes, Conveyor Belts, and Wagon Tipplers in India, use of robots for dross removal at zinc baths in Netherlands and access control at hazardous locations, while also improving the maturity of digital and technological projects.