TCS says women attrition higher than that of men, ending of WFH likely reason

India's largest technology company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), revealed that attrition rates among its women employees have surpassed those among men. This development has raised concerns about the potential impact of the end of work-from-home arrangements.

Milind Lakkad, Chief Human Resources Officer at TCS, highlighted the unusual nature of this trend. "Historically, the attrition among women employees — who constitute over 35 per cent of our workforce of over 600,000 — has been lower or similar to that of men," he noted. Lakkad suggested that the domestic arrangements reset during the pandemic might have prevented some women from returning to the office even after normalcy was restored.

“I would think working from home during the pandemic reset the domestic arrangements for some women, keeping them from returning to office even after everything normalised," he said in an interview published in the company's annual report.

Recognising the setback to TCS's efforts to promote gender diversity, Lakkad emphasised that the company is actively working on reversing this trend. The exact attrition numbers based on gender were not disclosed in the annual report. However, overall attrition peaked in the middle of the previous fiscal year but decreased to over 20 per cent by the end of March.

To address this issue, TCS has implemented focused leadership development programs such as 'iExcel.' The annual report highlighted that this flagship executive leadership development program for women has already completed 22 editions, benefiting 1,450 women leaders. Lakkad commended the quality of women candidates in the leadership pool, as nearly a quarter of the fulfilled internal leadership positions in FY23 were occupied by women, despite constituting only 14 percent of the applicant pool.

Moreover, the annual report disclosed that women constituted 38.1 percent of TCS's net hires in FY23. Additionally, the 'Rebegin' initiative, aimed at experienced women professionals re-entering the workforce after a break, received nearly 14,000 job applications during the same fiscal year.

In terms of senior management, TCS reported that out of the approximately 30,000 employees classified in this category, over 13 percent were women, as stated in the annual report. The company also introduced a policy on flexible work arrangements to provide necessary support and flexibility for caregivers of young children, expectant women employees, and persons with disabilities.

TCS has been urging employees to return to office work recently to strengthen the organisational culture.