UK

At Tata Chemicals Europe (TCE), over 65 percent of our employees live close to our sites. While unemployment in the area is around the UK average, manufacturing has been in decline so TCE is one of the few remaining companies locally in this sector. We employ most of our employees from the area in order to provide local employment opportunities. As per the Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) report, in terms of diversity, 99 percent of Northwich and surrounding areas have 99 percent White British or Irish people. TCE monitors the demographics of the area and those employed, using data from the HR system; 1.5 percent of our employees consider themselves to be coming from a different ethnic background other than White British. Within the UK, there are strict employment legislative requirements to which we adhere. Employment policies are also in place to ensure we follow requirements, starting from fair employment practice to flexible working. At TCE, employment contracts ensure we comply with all the legislative requirements related to the Working Time Directive. Every year, we publish our pay rates on the TCE Intranet for employees to know the rate for their grade. TCE has an employee handbook that outlines the benefits and policies regarding holidays, sickness, health and safety, etc. All grades within TCE are collectively bargained for (except where it is merit based).

We have revised all our core policies in 2014 to ensure they are in line with any new legislation in the UK. We have also developed new policies to reflect new laws such as shared parental leave. TCE has a number of family-friendly policies and benefits including flexible working, shared parental leave, child care vouchers, generous holiday entitlements and the advantage scheme (which offers discounts at many major retailers). We also have an occupational health provision for all the employees.  The HR provides HR clinics every week to address all employee-related queries regarding HR or the payroll. This year, we are looking to achieve the ‘Investors in people’ accreditation. We will also launch the ‘employee/manager of the month’ to reward employees with gift vouchers. We have an employee referral scheme wherein employees can earn up to £500 for recommending a new employee.

At TCE, for providing employment to non-employees, we work with a strategic recruitment supplier who ensures that the contracted resource receives equal payment as employees. We recognise both UNITE and GMB and have good partnership arrangements in place wherein we meet on a regular basis to discuss the business. We work closely with our master recruitment vendor to ensure our contract employees are paid in line with our employees.

At Tata Chemicals Europe (TCE) the overall engagement score is up by 12 percent. Whilst we have a long way to go, all senior managers are targeted towards achieving a further 11 percent increase by next year. Some areas of key improvement have been identified including senior leadership and employee development. In order to address those issues, we now have an engagement forum that makes employees look at ways to improve engagement. This year, we have embarked on a new employee induction to ensure everybody understands the TCE way and how they contribute to it.

At TCE, we adopt e-learning programmes from our parent company TCL, which are utilised by our employees. We have also developed our own internal LMS system, an e-learning portal that is accessed by all employees to enable self-development. Developing our leaders’ potential helps to keep them engaged as well as develops strong, expert leadership for our company well into the future. Our new leadership programme for our site managers, who lead the largest number of employees, is the key to our business. We have also introduced an Assessment for Development Centre for our identified talent within the business. This is for our ‘emerging’ and ‘leadership’ talent. Every successful candidate will have an individual development plan that includes mentoring and secondments to develop their knowledge and expertise in our business. The new LMS system is meant for all the employees. It provides an e-learning portal with mandatory training to ensure we comply with the legislative requirements such as health and safety and refresher training. The system automates certificates and reminders so that we ensure compliance. Moreover, it has developmental modules for all the employees to access and take control of their development. We have also developed an online performance management system for 2015. All eligible employees now have their objectives online for the first time. We have achieved a 100 percent completion rate on this.

TCE values all employees and their contributions, with a long-standing commitment to foster equal opportunity and intolerance of discrimination.