The Hindu Business Line : ‘High demand for talent in specialised domains’

Mumbai, July 29 After TCS’s results for the first quarter of the fiscal 2008 were announced, Mr S. Padmanabhan, Executive Vice-President in-charge of global human resource development, spoke to Business Line on various HR-rela ted issues and initiatives undertaken by the company. Excerpts:

How has the wage bill for TCS changed in the last three years? What impact does it have on the company?

The total wage bill for TCS is around 50 per cent of total revenues. It ranges between 48 per cent and 52 per cent in different quarters in the fiscal year.

In the first quarter, the wage bill is always higher owing to a one time ‘kick in’ that happens. However, it averages out during the course of the year. The total wage bill has had a 2.08 percentage point impact on the company [on its net margins].

Is the growing wage inflation affecting the BPO business in India? Is there a conscious effort on TCS’ part to move more work overseas?

Wage inflation is an accepted reality of a booming economy. Growth in the BPO industry demands having a global footprint. To give you an example, we are currently doing multi-lingual BPO work for a customer simultaneously from China, Hungary and India; our people in these geographies provide language capabilities for the client. Thus, moving work to other destinations totally boils down to our clients’ requirements.

I doubt whether the other so-called ‘cost effective’ countries are any better than India. India still offers the best bet in terms of salaries, infrastructure, scalability, English language capabilities and free movement of capital.

An increasing number of cases of potential employees forging certificates and making false experience disclosures are being reported. What initiatives do you take on this front?

We have in place a strong background check process. Our HR professionals are entrusted with the task of verifying credentials of people we hire from campuses.

We also work with background check agencies for verifying details of candidates. Thirdly, we get to ask the incumbents to go through the passport verification ritual which is done through the State police. However, there have been instances of employees forging certificates and not making necessary disclosures to the company.

We follow a zero tolerance policy in this regard; whenever such instances are brought to light we ask the person to leave. Background check agencies have, therefore, become an important part of the entire HR process.

As the global head of HR, which vertical of the company calls for maximum attention of yours and why?

All departments of HR go through maximum stress in the Enterprise resources and planning, customer relationship management and business intelligence space. In these specialised domains, demand for talent is high but supply is scarce.

Acquiring people, training and integrating them into TCS takes a lot of time and effort. However, this is not something unique for the company.

Every 3-4 years a new technology or space is in a ‘high demand, short supply’ scenario. Thus, having good processes and systems in place is of paramount importance. However, maximum headcount addition is still happening in the generic IT and BPO services space.

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