MUMBAI, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- India's Tata Steel on Monday said it had rolled out a new human resource policy that allows its employees from LGBTQ+ community to declare their partners and avail all HR benefits permissible under the law.
LGBTQ+ refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and related communities.
Under the expanded Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) policy, Tata Steel employees and their partners, which would mean people of same-sex living like a married couple, will be able to avail a host of benefits including health check-up, medical benefits, joint house points, adoption leave, new-born parent leave, child care leave, and inclusion in employee assistance program (EAP).
Employees will also get financial assistance for gender reassignment surgery and 30 days special leave for the same, the world's diversified steel producer, with annual revenue of 22.3 billion US dollars, said in a statement.
"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.
In 2014, India's top court in a landmark judgement recognised the rights of transgender persons and their right to decide on their gender identity subsequent to which the Parliament had enacted the law to facilitate transgender rights. A Boston Consulting Group report had said that companies that embraced diversity saw 19 percent higher revenues.
This policy entitles them to be equally eligible for participating in any event including an official gathering or an offshore corporate event, where earlier "only spouses of opposite gender were included", the statement said.
"It is a constant endeavour of the company to create an enabling workplace all diverse groups, respecting and embracing the differences in the individuals. In line with this ideology, we have rolled out these LGBTQ+ inclusive policies," said Atrayee S Sanyal, Chief diversity officer, Chief Group HR, and Chief HRM (Steel), Tata Steel.
