TCS Struggles to get Young Employees Back To Office as 80% are Still Working From Home

TCS Employees: The COVID-19 pandemic forced Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to implement a work-from-home policy, which it plans to end in the early 2020s. TCS is having difficulty getting its young working employees back to the offices.

Related: HCL Fires 350 Employees Who Were Working On Microsoft Project.

Last year, the IT company confirmed a 25/25 model that would be executed by 2025. This concept will involve just a quarter of its employees working from anywhere at any given time, but they will spend another quarter of their time in the office. But as it moves toward a phased implementation of the new model, it now appears that the company is willing for staff to return to the office.

The decision to postpone the hybrid work plan until 2025 rather than putting it into effect right away is being questioned by employees, who are said to make up 70% of the TCS working population and have relocated back to their hometowns to save money on travel and housing costs during the pandemic.

However, TCS insists that remote work cannot be the only arrangement. According to N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer of TCS, “Customers have started visiting our offices and labs, and while we see the views of the young people about having flexibility, customers’ requirements, choices, compliance risks, and regulations also have to be taken into consideration.”

Currently, the percentage of TCS employees returning to the office is less than 20%. In our opinion, it is extremely difficult to have recruits who have never been to a TCS office or interacted with mentors or role models. According to Subramaniam, if remote working is the only objective, it will result in a very transactional experience that is neither in the organization’s nor these young professionals’ mutual benefit because they won’t be able to experience thorough professional growth.

TCS COO said that the 25/25 is a “well thought-out operating model” and that they were the first to announce such a model but, “Values are imparted and mentoring is done within an office through personal interactions at the workplace. “We have a proper and validated approach for this model in the future, which will be implemented, he added further.

According to company insiders who spoke to the Economic Times, the IT firm hired nearly 100,000 people in 2021, many of whom joined remotely. Many left this year without ever setting foot inside the TCS office.

“Moonlighting is an issue we take very seriously because it is unethical,” according to TCS COO Subramaniam, who also expressed opposition to the practice. It is against the interests of our companies and clients and is mentioned in employee contracts.

According to HR managers, millennials approach the workplace differently than previous generations. TSS management aims to interact with workers in this conversation more. Unless attrition in the IT sector is any hint, demanding young talent rejects bureaucracy. “Companies must make efforts to understand the younger generation.” as per a senior executive close to the TCS.