The Tata Group's relationship with its employees has changed from the patriarchal to the practical, but this is a bond that continues to be nourished with compassion and care

"What exercise is to the body, employment is to the mind and morals," said American writer and thinker Henry David Thoreau. With some 289,500 members in its diverse and widespread family, the Tata Group touches and moulds the everyday lives of more people than any private-sector employer in the country. The richness of this relationship, fashioned by a tradition of benevolence and empathy, represents a workplace culture that goes way beyond work.

As any 'Tata person' will tell you, there's something positively distinctive, something less than completely explainable, about working for the group — the experience is cast in a hue quite different from the ordinary. This view continues to hold despite the changes that have altered the way the Tatas interact with their people, moving from the paternalistic philosophy of yore to bring the group in line with ever-evolving human-resource methodologies.

The transition from then to now has not eroded what remains a central theme with the group: providing its employees more than mere jobs. Workers and their welfare were of utmost importance to group founder Jamsetji Tata, who, writing to his son Dorab Tata in 1902, five years before a site for his proposed steel enterprise had been decided, stated: "Be sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick-growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens. Reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks. Earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian churches." It was but natural that the city built on this munificence came to be called Jamshedpur.

To understand the dynamics of the present, it is necessary to peep into the past. The Tatas pioneered a slew of employee benefits that would later be mandated through legislation in India and elsewhere in the world. The eight-hour working day, free medical aid, welfare departments, grievance cells, leave with pay, provident fund, accident compensation, training institutes, maternity benefits, bonus and gratuity — all of these and more were introduced by the group before any legal rules were framed on them. To give but one example of how far ahead of the times the Tatas were, while its first provident fund scheme was started in 1920, the government regulation on this issue came into force in 1952.

These workplace measures were complemented by what Tata companies created to enable their employees to live fuller lives away from their offices and factories, and to realise their vocational potential. The Tata townships in Jamshedpur, Mithapur, Babarala, Hosur and elsewhere are epitomes of communal existence. The management training programmes conducted by dedicated group institutions are devised to help employees give expression to their talent. The volunteering and community work that have now become a ritual in Tata companies fulfils another employee objective, while delivering succour to the poor and needy.

Driving every one of the group's initiatives in the wide sphere of employee relations is a value system that, slowly but surely, percolates to each person looking to craft a career in the Tatas. R. Gopalakrishnan, a member of the Tata Group Corporate Centre (GCC), divides the imbibing process into implicit and explicit ways. "Our induction and training programmes give new employees an opportunity to understand the history and background of the Group," he explains. "A second forum comprises the physical structures we have, such as the Tata archives in Jamshedpur and Pune. The third is the books, magazines and other publications that detail the Tata heritage. This is how we convert the implicit into the explicit."

Mr Gopalakrishnan is under no illusions that the Tata value system does, by itself, attract people to join the group, but he is certain it has a role to play in their decision. "I don't think young people join the Tatas because of the culture and all that. I think whenever somebody makes a career choice, he or she will have a repertoire of influences and some of them are what I call entry tickets; they don't enhance the value of being in the Tatas but they have the assurance that this is a decent, upstanding group."

Satish Pradhan, executive vice-president (group human resources), stresses the here-and-now of how the group has built on its legacy in employee relations. "Independent yardsticks bear out the truth that Tata companies are, by and large, engaging employees and creating a wholesome environment for them," he says. "This is permeating value right across the group in a variety of ways in terms of accountability and responsibility, not only to ourselves but also to our businesses, our communities and our stakeholders."

The specifics of the Tata engagement with its employees differ from factory floor to management enclave. But there are some commonalities, nowhere more so then on the vexed subject of voluntary retirement schemes (VRS). The realities of modern business have forced the group, like many others, to float and implement what would have been unthinkable for it in days gone by. The prime consideration for the Tatas on this issue has been to minimise the inevitable suffering it brings to people who have served a group company for long.

J. J. Irani knows more about the VRS dilemma than most. Currently a GCC member, Mr Irani was the managing director of Tata Steel when the company began the gargantuan task of cutting its workforce from 80,000-plus to the present 32,000. "This is a matter of being generous," he says. "Our VRS policy at Tata Steel is supposed to be very successful; people look at it and say we either have too little brains or too much money. But the point is that the people who left did so happily, and we never thrust it on anybody."

Mr Gopalakrishnan emphasises the learning on VRS that Tata companies share, be it with setting up entrepreneurship cells, training in alternate skills, involving banks and counsellors, or providing indirect employment opportunities. "This way we increase the possibility of good ideas, humane ideas that have come up in one Tata company being transferred to another," he says. "We don't want to make it sound like a victory or a virtue, but the Tatas have reduced about 100,000 people in 10 years in a manner whereby the pain people undergo — and there would certainly have been varying degrees of that — has been made minimal."

The thought and care that accompanies all Tata VRS initiatives finds an echo in the many volunteering programmes that group employees undertake. These range from helping underprivileged folks in big cities to uplifting rural communities in the Indian outback. "Tata Chemicals, Tata Steel, Voltas, Tata Consultancy Services, Rallis, Indian Hotels — all of them are deeply involved in volunteering work," says Mr Gopalakrishnan. "The numbers are staggering, in terms of time invested, the range of activities, and the spread of geographies." Adds Mr Pradhan: "We see volunteerism as shaping the minds of our employees as well as giving back to the communities in which we operate."

Change management is another area where the Tata Group has invested plenty of effort. The smooth transition that companies such as VSNL and CMC have made, from being public-sector entities to becoming members of the Tata family, bears testimony to the patience and skills the group has brought to the challenging task of reforming the mindsets and attitudes of employees coming into its fold from a different work environment.

The Tatas have progressed with the times and have endeavoured to offer more to their employees today, including the opportunity to progress within and across group companies. Programmes such as the Tata Administrative Service and institutions like the Tata Management Training Centre have been revamped and reengineered to reflect the requirements of the present. These and other measures enable achievers in the group to progress further and faster than was the case in years gone by. "We have group mobility processes that facilitate movement across functions and domains of knowledge," says Mr Pradhan. "We have over the last three years consistently moved an average of 50 people a year, at the managerial level and above, across companies."

If all of this suggests the Tatas are some kind of model employer, then Gopalakrishnan is quick to dispel the notion. "I'd like to believe that we are always striving to be a model employer," he says, "but I also believe that if there were a list of model employers, the Tatas would certainly feature in the top few." Kishore Chaukar, also a member of the GCC, seconds his colleague. "I would say the Tatas are on their way to becoming a model employer, but we have a considerable way to go," he says. "We have millions of miles to cover, thousands of items on our agenda," says Mr Pradhan. "However, we are happy with the approaches we are taking."

James R. Uffelman, an American businessman, once said: "The only way I can compete … is to treat my employees better, move them up faster, give them more money and put mirrors in the bathrooms." The articles featured in this subsection reflect the varied endeavours being pursued by the Tata Group to do all of that, and then some.