TCS HR head on 'return to office' initiative: '53% workforce already in office thrice a week'

Milind Lakkad, Chief HR Officer at TCS

Tata Consulting Services (TCS) Chief HR Officer Milind Lakkad on Wednesday said that the company's "return to office' initiative has picked up pace, with 53 percent of the workforce already coming to work at the office thrice a week.

"We remain focused on developing, retaining, and rewarding the best talent in the industry, and enhancing their effectiveness by bringing them back to the office to foster our culture," Lakkad said. "Our 'return to office' initiative is picking pace, with 55 percent of the workforce already in the office thrice a week."

The HR head added that the company has given a 12-15 percent raise for exceptional performers in its latest annual compensation review and have begun to consider candidates for promotions.

"TCSers logged 12.7 million learning hours in upskilling themselves during the quarter in market-relevant skills like generative AI, cloud, data, and analytics. Our attrition continues to trend down and we expect it to be back in our industry-leading, long-term range in the second half of the year," Lakkad added.

The country's largest IT firm had last September asked employees to work in the office for at least three days a week, according to an internal mail shared with employees.

“Senior leaders of TCS have been working from TCS offices for a while now and our customers are also visiting TCS offices… Your respective managers will now roster you to work from the TCS office for at least 3 days in a week,” the company said in the mail. “Adherence to rostering is mandatory and will be tracked… any noncompliance will be taken seriously, and administrative measures may be applied.”

HR head Milind Lakkad's comment also comes amid speculations that the company has been witnessing a mass resignation of its women staff after it discontinued its work-from-home (WFH) policy.

Speaking to Moneycontrol in June, Lakkad did not specify the exact number of women who have resigned in the past year, but termed the trend as “unusual”. He suggested that the return-to-office policy could have been a factor for the higher number of resignations by women in the last financial year.

“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.

Read more: TCS plans to double the salary, reduce disparity: HR head reveals the blueprint