TCS to end work-from-home culture; 25,000 hired during pandemic quit before getting ID cards

IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is in the process of putting an end to work from home (WFH) culture for the first time since the onset of Covid-19 pandemic. It is expected that TCS would not allow WFH after November onwards. Not just TCS, most tech companies are eventually calling all their employees back to office after providing WFH facility for the last few years.

Batting for the need of employees' returning to office, TCS chief operating officer (COO) N Ganapathy Subramaniam said, "We hired about 100,000 people last year. About 25,000 of them joined TCS remotely without even taking the ID cards or seeing a TCS office and also have chosen to leave this year for another job. When I look at that I feel sad. I'm sure that had they been in a face-to-face interaction, they would have valued TCS a lot better than working remotely because in their mind they are seeing somebody in the screen."

Subramaniam was speaking at Business Today's India@100 Summit in a session moderated by its Editor Sourav Majumdar.

However, lauding employees' effort during WFH, the TCS COO said, "There were times when 99 to 100 per cent of employees were working remotely. I met somebody at the airport lounge about 6-7 months and the person asked how do you make a $1 billion profit in this quarter without anybody coming to work. You feel very positive about it and you have to give it to them (employees).

Currently, around 20 to 25 per cent of the company's total workforce have returned to office.

Commenting on the new trends in the technology space, he said, "Everything that we do, it will have to be reimagined all the time, which we do continuously. When I see what's happening around me, there are three or four things."

These are advanced connectivity, security, privacy and artificial intelligence pervasive, Subramaniam outlined.

Meanwhile, the IT company has confirmed that it will pay 100 per cent variable pay to more than 6 lakh employees.

Shares of TCS settled 0.21 per cent up at Rs 3,225 today.