Mumbai, June 14: Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) is India’s largest IT firm. It is also one of the largest employers of women in India in the private sector. Recent reports claim women employees are quitting TCS because of the return-to-office policy.

While the company is refuting this claim, HR seems to have an explanation. As per a report on money control, Milind Lakkad (Chief Human Resources Officer, TCS) blamed the pandemic for the "unusual" trend. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Hails Elon Musk for Making Twitter ‘A Lot Leaner’ Which Is Good for Industry Overall.

Recently, TCS ended its work-from-home (WFH) policy. This reportedly led to women employees resigning en masse. The chief HR suggested that the return-to-office policy could have been a factor for the higher number of resignations by women.

"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 the office even after everything normalised. 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," Lakkad was quoted in a moneycontrol report.

Historically, the attrition among women employees has been lower or similar to that of men at TCS. However, in 2023, the company saw higher attrition among women staff as compared to men.

TCS hired 22,600 people on a net basis in FY23. The company reported an attrition rate of 20.1 per cent in IT services.

Currently, women's staff constitute over 35 per cent of the TCS workforce. The IT giant employs more than 6.14 lakh workers. Overall, the turnover rate among female permanent employees in FY 2023 is 21.9 per cent (higher than 20.9 per cent for men). Women make up 23 per cent of all the leadership positions fulfilled internally.

TCS introduced the return-to-office policy in September last year, starting with at least three days of work in the office. It also started sending memos to employees who are not present in the office at least 12 days a month. Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Pay to Content Creators for Ads Served to Verified Users.

"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 in a week. Adherence to rostering is mandatory and will be tracked… any noncompliance will be taken seriously, and administrative measures may be applied," the company said in an leaked internal mail.

It is to be noted that TCS crossed USD 168 billion in market cap in FY23 and became India's second most valuable company. The company's revenue and client base also grew.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 14, 2023 11:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).