Organizations with a strong ethics culture can motivate their employees and people around them to speak honestly and with integrity. TATA Group-owned Air India has chosen to develop an ethics governance structure in order to boost the airline’s ethics culture.
The airline has also announced the formation of committees at the regional and apex levels. The apex committee would be led by Campbell Wilson, managing director and CEO of Air India. Air India’s chief ethics counsellor (CEC), chief human resource officer (CHRO), chief financial officer (CFO), and chief operations officer (COO) are also members of the committee.
The apex committee would be in charge of formalising any ethics or related guidelines, as well as approving policies, forms, and procedures pertaining to ethics guidelines. According to the internal document, regional ethics committees can escalate issues to the apex committee if they arise.
One of the committee’s major responsibilities will be to create a “positive ethics culture” through continual engagement, AI engagement, and ethics training. This mission will also be supported by local ethics counsellors (LECs) and regional ethics champions. Gurjot Malhi has been appointed as the new CEC. Previously, he was the CEC of Vistara, where he attempted to establish a system along the same lines.
Malhi has been at Tata Steel for almost a decade. He has served as an advisor to the managing director of Tata Steel, as well as an advisor to Tata Sons in Bombay House and the CEO of Vistara.