Though the employee strength at TCS has gone past 2.4 lakh, the software solutions company, hands-on at retaining talent, is looking at launching an internal social network for employees.
Mr Ajoyendra Mukherjee, Executive Vice-President and Global Head, Human Resources, talks about what drives TCS to be one of the largest private sector employers.
You have mentioned that retention in the first quarter increased to over 88 per cent. How do you retain talent at TCS?
A person thinks of leaving an organisation if the person feels that the job that he is doing is not challenging enough or he is not being taken care of in the organisation. Compensation is not always the main reason.
There are multiple things that we do. If the person joins as a lateral, we try to integrate the person with the organisation. Integration is very critical because it is the first exposure to the organisation. Rotation also helps the person grow and develop their own competency. We also have career discussions which focus on how the person is growing.
It is difficult to measure what exactly contributed to the increase in retention rate in this quarter. Over the last three years, constant focus on talent engagement has yielded results and helped retention. If you see an annual survey that we do, there is a marked increase in the satisfaction index.
It is important to give our employees an opportunity to work in different countries.
Then, how are you dealing with the increase in visa costs?
We have to understand that as the volume grows, there will be an increase in visa cost. This time, the entire activity (visa application process) has happened in three months. Bulk of the cost came in Q1.
Now, we are doing more of H1-B visas, this year we did 5,900 applications for H1-B visas. Last year, we applied for 4,500 visas.
There are constraints that will always be there especially in an environment where the economy is not growing. We have to understand that and adjust our business model according to that.
Given the visa challenges – there is an increasing focus on offshore and to hire more locals.
As an HR head, how do your priorities change each quarter?
Priorities will not change on a quarter on quarter (q-o-q) basis. Short-term changes are more operational. As part of the long-term strategy, one of the challenges we face is that due to the technology upgradation, we need to constantly re-skill employees.
For quarterly projects, we have to decide on how we are planning the manpower. Also, we need to track how the demand is changing from q-o-q.
Since internal communication is important, can you tell us about the new internal social networking platform that TCS is set to launch?
We will soon have something that is primarily for internal communication. It will be a platform where employees will be able to post photographs etc.
Discussions are going on as to when we will launch it. At present, we have some tools like Ultimatix, TCS videos etc.
The social network will integrate all this on one platform.
In case of “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) – there is a security concern. At present, BYOD is not for all.