Here's how Tata Consultancy Services is maintaining its steely-eyed focus on employee well-being

Milind Lakkad, the company’s Chief Human Resources Officer, points to TCS’s 56-year history as evidence of its success. “People have always been our key priority from inception. We spend a lot of time and effort creating the right systems and continuously building on the foundation,” he says. With a workforce of 601,546—35.6% of them are women—at the end of FY24, one might assume that that kind of attention is not possible. Lakkad makes it clear that the firm retains a “small company culture” that helps keep the focus.

“We see more leaders emerging, and that, along with stable leadership, works very well. It leads to like-minded people who are steeped in TCS culture,” says Lakkad. This helps communicate the company’s message to its diverse workforce, which includes people from 152 nationalities. “Once we get it right on the basic culture piece, it becomes easy for anyone joining us to grasp it, and, eventually, they become torchbearers of the organisation.”

Through the conversation, one loses count of the number of times Lakkad mentions the words people and culture. According to him, people are not resources; they need to be looked at as human beings. “Our policies are very human-centric at all times, and flexible working is just one example [of this],” he says. That approach involves looking out for employees in times of need, be it someone who is a new mother or one who is expecting a child, someone dealing with an ailing parent, or someone who has a child studying for the all-critical board exams. “All of them are equally important. These are parts of our culture that have always been there and will never change.”

Here is an organisation with a massive global footprint, and there could be an executive sitting in, say, Amsterdam facing an issue. “We make no difference, and everyone is equally important. Each month, there are easily five to 10 such cases, and we need to help them during tough times,” Lakkad says.

Lakkad admits that this is an ongoing process and can be time-consuming. “That’s why our approach to engagement with purpose becomes so critical. We try and put ourselves in their shoes to understand the issue better,” he explains. TCS is a firm believer in “integrity, respect for individuals, and the need to continuously learn.” For every member of its workforce, these tenets “are paramount and driven through the system every day”.

The IT sector is very competitive, and the need for talent can hardly be exaggerated. In such a situation, it becomes doubly important to identify star performers and reward them to ensure they remain with the organisation. “[Star performers] are put on accelerated career paths. The idea is to link one’s learning with career growth,” explains Lakkad. That creates a vibrant environment within the company. It also allows such employees to determine their own career paths. “In the process, the kind of engagements or the nature of opportunities at a global level can change quite dramatically for a person,” he adds.

Likewise, someone who is an expert in a certain sphere gets pulled into more critical projects. “The expertise in one is identified early, and if there is another customer in that sector, the person becomes the key resource,” he says. It is the experience that is rewarded, and the expectation of the organisation is that the workforce understands what it takes to deliver. “At the end of the day, nothing is more important than getting it right on execution. It leads to higher levels of stickiness, and as we have seen, it becomes the base for repeat business.”

But most of all, TCS places a premium on trying to ensure that an employee feels good and wanted. Lakkad stresses the importance of ensuring there is enough motivation about getting into work each day and that positivity must permeate across the organisation. “The question they ask is what is being done to build my career. What the person goes through must be challenging and exciting,” he says.

It is perhaps because of such a granular approach that TCS has consistently ranked high on BT-Taggd’s The Best Companies to Work For in India list. 

@krishnagopalan