Tata Steel Takes a Leap on Gender Diversity

Adding yet another first to the long list of pioneering efforts in the field of human resources and employees’ welfare, Tata Steel has opened up two shifts at its Jamshedpur steel plant shopfloor for women employees between 6:00 am and 10:00 pm. Starting April 1, 2019, Tata Steel has deployed 52 female employees at its Coke Plant and Electrical Repair Shopfloor in Shifts A & B between 6:00 am and 10:00 pm through the week.

This is also the first major step taken by Tata Steel towards its plans to have women constitute 10% of its workforce on the shopfloor by 2025 and to create more avenues for women to grow in the technical/ manufacturing domain.  The new initiative to include women in the shopfloor follows the 2017 guidelines prescribed by the Government of Jharkhand that allows women to work in some shifts, provided adequate safety measures are put in place by employers.

Mr. Suresh Dutt Tripathi, Vice President, Human Resource Management, Tata Steel, said, “We are happy to deploy this first batch of 52 women in the Coke Plant and Electrical Repair shopfloor of our Jamshedpur Plant. This demonstrates our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion and leveraging all opportunities to build high performing diverse teams. Going forward, we hope to expand this further to include more departments that will open-up for women.”

Ahead of this new and significant diversity and inclusion initiative, Tata Steel had conducted sensitisation sessions for the employees, set-up security systems, created women role models as ambassadors and met families of women to seek continued support and make this a success. The Company has created new and augmented existing facilities like creche, special conveyance, availability of lady doctors and attendants, canteen, restroom and washroom facilities, deployment of female security guards, CCTV surveillance systems and more.

Tata Steel has been constantly innovating and pioneering people practices in the realms of hiring, engagement, diversity & inclusion, rewards & recognition and performance management. In keeping with the changing times, the Company has introduced several path-breaking policies, practices and initiatives for various segments of the workforce like 5-day workweek, menstrual leave, paternity leave, adoption leave, satellite office operation and Take 2 (to provide a platform to the partners of the Tata Steel employees and women professionals who are on career break) to name a few.

The Company’s Diversity & Inclusion Programme ‘MOSAIC’ is enabling a diversity of gender, hiring & inclusion of PWDs (Persons with Disabilities), inclusion of LGBT and more.

In 2018, Tata Steel had flagged off its new brand campaign under theme of “We Also Make Tomorrow” to showcase its pioneering work in the areas of innovation, technology, and sustainability.