HeroMotocorp sacks around 30 employees for ethics code violation

The country's largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp has sacked around 30 employees for violation of the company's code of conduct, according to sources.

The executives were found fudging travel expense bills, accepting personal favours, gifts and other benefits from some of vendors, suppliers and dealers in violation of the company's internal 'code of conduct', the sources said.

The executives were given marching orders after "thorough investigations" into the allegations against them, the sources added.

When contacted, a Hero MotoCorp official confirmed the development and told PTI: "All due legal procedures were followed before taking the final action. Third-party independent investigators were appointed to look into these cases once the anomalies were detected in the activity record of these executives".

Stressing on the significance of the step, the official said,"We have always had a clearly laid out Code of Conduct for all our employees and it is absolutely mandatory for everyone working at Hero to abide by it. Integrity and value-based behaviour is a way of life at Hero and no one violating these principles has any place in this organisation".

Hero MotoCorp's management was unanimous in its view that the concerned employees could not continue in the company, once it was established that they had violated the code of conduct, the official said.

The employees were given due opportunities to present their cases. When confronted with evidence, they owned up to the wrongdoing, official said. He, however, declined to share the names and designations of the sacked employees.

Sources, however, said the sacked executives were mostly involved in supply chain and vendor facing activities.

"None of them was a key managerial personnel (KMP) so we don’t have to share their names as per regulatory norms. It is also not our purpose to shame anyone publicly," the official said.

HeroMotocorp crossed the 75 lakh units sales mark in 2017-18 fiscal, becoming the first ever entity to achieve such a feat globally. The company had sold 66.6 lakh bikes and scooters in 2016-17.