SHIVANI SHINDE NADHE

New Delhi, 5 June

T
ata Consultancy Services
(TCS), the countrys largest
provider of IT services, has
over 300,000 people on its rolls
andplans toaddanother 55,000in
thecurrent financial year. This will
bring TCS within striking distance
of the countrys largest employer
in the corporate sector, state-
owned Coal India which has
357,000 employees.
For the human resources team
of TCS, the challenge is not just
the scale but also that these men
and women represent 118 nation-
alities and are located in 50 coun-
tries. For a services provider like
TCS, human resources hold the
key to success. Demoralised and
demotivated employees lead to
bad service, erosion of brand equi-
ty and loss of business. At the
same time, they are the principle
cost of business. (Employees
accounted for 37 per cent of the
total cost for TCS in 2013-14, down
from 37.84 per cent a year ago
because of the weakening of the
rupee.) Pay them too much and
the profits will have to take a hit
the margins in the business are
very competitive. For TCS
Executive Vice-president & Head
of Global Human Resources Ajoy
Mukherjee, the challenge is to
strike a balance between the need
for a charged-up workforce and
profits. ITcompanieshaverealised
that one way to keep employee
costs under control is to hire fresh
graduates from campuses in large
numbers. They are inexpensive
manpower. But getting the wrong
people requires substantial invest-
ments in training and the cost
advantage gets negated.
At TCS, according to
Mukherjee, manpower planningis
done at least three years in
advance. The projections get
refinedfor eachyear. Andthecom-
pany starts visiting campuses for
recruitment one-and-a-half years
in advance. Mukerjees team visits
almost 370 colleges every year
from September to mid-February.
Theteamcreatesapool of students
who are assessed through an
onlinetest, followedbytworounds
of interview. Around 70 per cent
of these students join TCS. The
bulk of these freshers come from
engineering colleges at an entry
level salary, which has remained
unchanged for five years now, of
~3.15 to ~3.50 lakh.
Mukherjee in an earlier inter-
actionwithBusinessStandardhad
confirmed that if there is any revi-
sion in salaries at this level, it
would lead to a cascading effect
on all others. The moment you
touch it (freshers salary), you are
changing the employee cost
through the pyramid. So, at this
stage, we are saying we will stick to
it (the current packages), he had
said. Not just in India, TCS hires
trainees inmarkets suchas theUS,
China and Hungary too. Its only
in countries where we have deliv-
ery centres that we hire from
campuses. In the US, we will vis-
it about 35 institutes this year. In
China, we get interns and then
we eventually hire them,
Mukherjee says. Since the com-
pany hires in such large numbers
across geographies, Mukherjee
has made use of technology
extensively. For instance, the
entire process of hiring from cam-
puses is done online. TCS has
created a portal called Next-step
where students go to apply for a
job. Right from the time a candi-
date sends in his resume, to
enrolling for an online test and
getting an offer letterthe entire
process is online.
There is also an effort to con-
nect with the future employees.
Through Campus Connect, stu-
dents are made part of TCS even
before they join; it also helps the
company spot talent much ahead
of the placement.
The bane of the IT sector is
high employee turnover.
Replacements need to be hired
and trained, and theres a cost
attached to it. So, most companies
want to keep attrition as low as
possible. TCSs attrition of 11.43
per cent in 2013-14 may have risen
from 10.57 per cent in 2012-13 but
it is still among the lowest in the
industry. At Infosys, attrition was
at 18.7 per cent in the March-end-
ed quarter, while at Wipro it was at
15.1 per cent.
But even at this low attrition
TCS has to hire and train at least
30,000 additional
hands in a year.
One way out of the
annual exercise is
to give regular
increments. TCS
gave 10 per cent in
2013-14 (average of 7 per cent in
2012-13), which compares
favourably with the industry
benchmark of 7 to 9 per cent for
offshore employees.
Thesocial network
Mukherjee says his prime concern
is to meet the aspirations of the
young employees (those born in
the 1980s and early 1990s) who
make up 80 per cent of the work-
force.To keep in touch with the
goals of this generation,
Mukherjee has again relied on
technology. In 2013, TCS did a sur-
vey of Indias younger generation,
covering 17,500 high school stu-
dents across 14 cities. The biggest
finding was that this generation
was a heavy user of smart devices
and had a constant need to be
online. This led to the creation of
Knome, TCSs internal online
social network. This is significant
as several IT companies do not
allow employees to access plat-
forms such as Facebook or Twitter
during work hours, but Knome
allows employees to connect
though posts, discussions and
blogs.This is also a popular plat-
formfor the brass to connect with
all. CEONChandrasekaran, rather
than sending emails to individual
employees, has chosen to post his
thoughtsonthisplatform, ensuring
it reachesout tothelargest number.
This is also a platform that helps
employees reachtheir voice to the
top. For instance, someemployees
thought that half-sleeve shirts can
beapart of formal dressinginIndia
since the country is hot. They cre-
atedconsensusamongtheemploy-
ees and nowMukherjee is looking
at making such shirts a part of the
TCS dress code. In addi-
tion, TCSdoesanannual
PulseSurveywhichtakes
every employees feed-
backonthings that mat-
ter to them. The feed-
back is confidential and
the human resources teamworks
oneachof the issues raisedduring
the survey.
More than the sheer number
of employees, what worries
Mukherjee is how to keep this
300,000-strong workforce rele-
vant in the fast changing world of
technology? As technology
becomes obsolete every two or
three years, how do you keep our
people current with technology,
says he. TCS does it by shifting
employees across departments
and organising training pro-
grammes. However, because the
training programmes require its
employees to move from one
office to another across geogra-
phies, they can also be a difficult
exercise in compliance, especially
to rules pertaining to visas. How
do we ensure we are compliant?
The risk to reputation is very
high, Mukherjee adds.
In spite of the rapid rise in the
employee base, TCSs revenue per
employee increased from $41,900
in 2011-12 to $44,600 in 2013-14.
HowTCS manages its
huge workforce
The countrys second largest employer in the corporate sector has over
300,000 men and women on its roles in 50 countries
SCALING THINGS UP TCS House in Mumbai (left)
and the TCS office in Thiruvananthapuram.
TCS, the countrys largest IT services provider,
plans to hire 55,000 people in the current
financial year
*at current rate
TCS does an annual
survey which takes
every employees
feedback on things
that matter to them
300,000 No. of
employees
50 Countries in which
it has it offices
118 Nationalities
of its staff
20s and 30s Age
profile of employees
370 Colleges it
recruits from
~3.15 to ~3.50 lakh
Entry-level salary
~26.5 lakh* Revenue
per employee in
2013-14
HR STRATEGY:
CHEAP AND CHEERFUL