The Hindu Business Line : Retaining talent, the TCS way

Winning moves
Three strategies adopted by TCS — building competencies, engaging people at all levels and giving them continuous technology domain capability across multiple geographies — have helped to keep employee motivation high.

MR S. PADMANABHAN

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Coimbatore Jan. 21 How does Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which accounts for the largest workforce among IT companies in India, also enjoys the lowest attrition rate — 10.8 per cent — in the sector?

A peek into the strategy the company has adopted to retain its workforce, at a time when there is frenzied recruitment by not only domestic companies but also foreign players establishing roots in India, has been provided by Mr S. Padmanabhan, Executive Vice-President and Head of Global Human Resources, TCS.

Strategy in place

Answering a question at an analysts/investors conference call after the publication of the third-quarter results of TCS, he said there were two or three things that TCS was doing consistently.

One was the way it kept building the competencies of its people. The company looked at the profiles of people less than one year, then at people with 1-3 years of service and those with 3-5 years of service. The company studied the type of engagements the people were currently doing and what kind of work they were needed to do. Thus, there was a "very systematic effort of investment and training people and building their competencies." He described this as "one big exit barrier for our employee."

Next, the company has understood that it needs to engage employees in activities beyond work. There was a systematic month-on-month calendar that was worked out, which gave opportunities to TCS staff to involve themselves and build their capabilities, "not just at work level but also outside work."

Also, the company has a good rotation plan to move people across geographies and technologies.The three strategies adopted by TCS — building competencies, engaging people at all levels and giving them continuous technology domain capability across multiple geographies — helped it to keep employee motivation high and maintain high retention.

He said when the company hired people, "there is a lot of effort that goes into the hiring engine." It looked at people from the fitment and capability point of view and spent a lot of time in "hiring people who will stay with us for a much longer time."

The numbers

The number of TCS employees at the end of the last quarter was 79,755. The gross addition during the third quarter was 7,835 and net addition was 5,562.The utilisation rate was 78.22 per cent (excluding trainees) and 74.99 per cent (including trainees).

The attrition rate in the last 12 months was 10.8 per cent. Non-Indian nationals constitute 8.8 per cent of the total workforce, they come from 65 nationalities and 25 per cent of the employees are women.

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