While keeping its workforce highly motivated through the business changes, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) India is finding its own unique approach to tackling high attrition by reducing time that an employee spends on a project. The company clocked the highest ever attrition rate in the quarter ended June 2015, pegged at 15.9%.
About 80 percent of the employees at the India’s largest software exporter belong to Gen-Y, who are the first to quit jobs and look for better career advancement prospects. The company said it normally saw a rise in April-June (the financial year’s first quarter), with many leaving after annual appraisals and for higher education. The number who left in this period was 15,023, as compared to 10,850 who quit in the same period a year before.
“Mobility is important and time factor needs to be reviewed,” said Ajoy Mukherjee, global HR head of TCS. “Rotation (between) roles probably needs to happen a bit faster because this generation wants everything fast. Although nothing is defined, depending on the ability of roles, it needs to be faster than 1.5-2 years.”
By reducing time spent on a project, the company aims to be the most flexible companies in the industry. Since TCS cannot alter benefits, quick project transitions or modify the salary structure often, reducing time invested on a project will help retain the interest of employees on job at TCS. This will further facilitate retention of talent within the organisation.
See: India Inc HRs Need to Gear Up For the Post-Appraisal Attrition Season
Sometimes being unable to get off a project for long duration creates boredom at work and can be one of the reasons employees choose to leave TCS. “Work has to be challenging and you have to keep them motivated. TCS allows rotation and faster ones are in the pipeline,” added Mukherjee.
IT companies have always been remarked by higher attrition trends since a majority of the workforce choose to quit jobs much earlier to pursue higher studies. In Latin America, attrition is high because employees are often inducted on a project basis and asked to leave when it gets over, which is the norm there.
This is no way means to indicate that projects which get completed on a longer time frame in India will be completely discontinued in the near future or all projects tend to get boring at a point in time.
Faster rotation cycle can only be implemented if the employees have necessary skill sets to hop on to new projects quickly and make the transition fast, after the earlier one gets complete. Digitization will be the main propeller for company’s growth in these changing times. Plans are underway TCS to focus efforts on online learning and digital tech.
In another move by TCS, the company is providing one-time special bonus to commemorate its 10-year listing anniversary on the Indian stock markets. The company has allotted Rs. 2628 crore to be given away to employees in the form of bonuses, such as to retain talent within the organisation.
The attrition trend is further fuelled because of increasing pressures on IT companies to cut down on prices of their service offerings, as scope of the traditional business model is limited. So either companies can opt for value addition services or cut human resource costs to maintain the operating margins. Besides IT majors are losing talent to start-ups who offer better pay package and an opportunity to employees to work on new product domains and technologies.
Also read: How to Retain Talent and Cut Attrition?
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