IT services major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is likely to end hybrid work from October 1, 2023. In an internal email, the company asked its workforce to attend office for five days a week, signalling a ongoing shift in work-from-home policies for the IT sector which employs over five million Indians.
To be sure, this transition mandate still continues to remain three days a week, but according to Moneycontrol’s sources, managers in various divisions have been nudging employees to come in to office five times a week. The company will however retain flexibility/hybrid policies and make exceptions wherever necessary.
An internal email accessed by CNBC-TV18, however, said, "As communicated by CEO and chief human resources officer (CHRO) in various townhalls, it is mandatory for all associates to attend office on all the working days (5 days per week if there are no holidays) starting 1 October 2023."
This is a marked shift from TCS' previous stance, which, since September 2022, has required employees to adhere to a roster and be in office three days a week. It had also warned employees of consequences if they did not adhere to this roster.
The email has not gone out to all teams, and is being staggered, according to sources.
TCS declined to comment on Moneycontrol's queries stating that the company is in the "silent period at the moment."
The company has previously also received flak, after Chief Human Resources Officer Milind Lakkad said in a Q&A in the company’s annual report that attrition of women was higher when compared to men in FY23.
“Historically, women’s attrition at TCS has been similar or lower than men’s attrition, so this is unusual. There might be other reasons but intuitively, I would think working from home during the pandemic reset the domestic arrangements for some women, keeping them from returning to office even after everything normalised,” Lakkad said.
As of quarter ended June 30, TCS had around 615,318 employees. In the company's FY23 annual report, Lakkad said, over half the workforce today was hired after March 2020.
"Work from home is definitely more convenient for everybody, but there were drawbacks. Tenured employees who are well networked within the organization can work effectively and even collaborate virtually using the social capital built up over the years. That isn’t the case with more junior employees," Lakkad said.
He added, "New employees get acculturated through physical interactions with senior colleagues and leaders, by observing and following their behaviors and ways of thinking. Without those interactions, employee engagement as well as acculturation got badly impacted. All these factors led us to gradually bring back people to our offices during the year."
Gopinathan's 25 x 25 rule
This seems to contradict former TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan's 25 X 25 vision, which he announced in 2020. As per the model, by 2025, only 25 percent of its associates will need to work out of facilities at any point of time. Also, the employees will not need to spend more than 25 percent of their time at work.
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