India’s largest IT firm, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), has denied reports that its women employees are resigning en masse after it ended its Work-From-Home (WFH) policy.
Women constitute over 35% of the IT giant's 6.14 lakh-plus workforce. According to the 2022 Burgundy Private Hurun India 500 report, TCS is the largest employer of women in India in the private sector.
In a question-and-answer session, excerpts of which were published in the company’s annual report last week, Milind Lakkad, chief human resources officer at TCS, was asked about the higher attrition among women staff as compared to men in FY 2023.
While the company did not specify the exact number of women who have resigned in the past year, the top executive termed the trend as “unusual” and 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.
“The higher attrition among women in FY 2023 is a setback to our efforts to promote gender diversity but we are doubling down on it. Focused leadership development programs like iExcel are driving tremendous change.”
Women made up 23% of all the leadership positions fulfilled internally, he said.
In FY23, TCS had 2.19 lakh permanent women employees, comprising 35.8% of the workforce. Overall, the turnover rate among female permanent employees stood at 21.9%, while it was at 20.9% for men.
On reports of women employees resigning en masse due to the return-to-office policy, sources at TCS told Moneycontrol, “We deny it.”
TCS introduced the return-to-office policy last September, asking employees to work in the office for at least three days a week. It had stirred the hornet’s nest after it said that adhering to the roster would be mandatory and be tracked.
In an internal mail sent to employees, the company said, “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 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.”
According to a report in the Times of India last month, the company has also started sending out memos to employees who are not present in the office at least 12 days a month.
TCS hired 22,600 people on a net basis in FY23 and reported an attrition rate of 20.1%on a last-twelve-month basis in IT services.
TCS witnessed a major leadership change as Rajesh Gopinathan was succeeded by K Krithivasan, who took over as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in the beginning of June. During Gopinathan's stint, TCS became India's second most valuable company, crossing $168 billion in market cap in FY23. Its revenue and client base also grew.
Lakkad said the CEO-level attrition was an "unprecedented event at TCS".
