'If you broke the code, you left': When Ratan Tata explained how the Group handled errant employees 

Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons and doyen of the Indian industry, Ratan Tata, had once underscored the importance of adhering to the company’s culture and ethics code. He said that he has strict standards of adherence to the company code, and any errant employee would be required to leave the conglomerate.

Ratan Tata, at an event by the Export-Import Bank of the United States in 2017, said that the company made all of its employees read and sign its code. When asked how the integrity and ethics in Tata Enterprises evolve and how they managed to inculcate those values in thousands of employees, Ratan Tata said, “The culture was always there…the enterprise was built on that kind of basis…but I accept that you can’t vouch for the DNA of every single person that you have. We codified the ethos with great difficulty because no one could put their arms around us and define it. We had all our employees read it and sign it, we had our directors do the same.” 

“And the view I have is that you can show your compliance or your commitment to value systems and ethics by how you deal with an errant employee when he veers away from this does something that goes outside the sphere of that…and we have been, at least in my time, absolutely hard on – didn’t matter who it was, if you broke the code, you left the company,” said Ratan Tata. 

One of India's biggest boardroom showdown took place between Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mistry, the scion of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, who was appointed to lead Tata Group after Ratan Tata. Although it is not clear what transpired behind closed doors, the group removed Mistry over "trust deficit". Mistry in turn accused the group of serious governance breaches. The face-off snowballed into a legal battle, with NCLT initially dismissing Mistry's pleas, which NCLAT rejected. Subsequently, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Tata. The two parties eventually parted ways. 

Tata Code of Conduct was first formalised by Ratan Tata to articulate the group’s values and ideals, as well as govern the conduct of the companies and its employees. 

“The Tata Code of Conduct outlines our commitment to each of our stakeholders, including the communities in which we operate, and is our guiding light when we are sometimes faced with business dilemmas that leave us at ethical crossroads. The Code is also dynamic in that it has been periodically refreshed in order to remain contemporary and contextual to the changes in law and regulations. However it remains unaltered at its core,” Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran had said. 

As per the company’s website, the Tata group currently has over 1 million employees. 

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