TCS to Trim Employee Duration on Projects to Fight High Attrition Levels

In a bid to fight high attrition levels, India's largest software firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is looking to trim the time its employees spend on projects.

The move is also aimed at motivating its "young workforce" to stay with the organization, as they account for nearly 80% of the company's total employee base.

"Mobility is important and time factor needs to be reviewed,"Ajoy Mukherjee, global HR head of TCS, told The Economic Times.

"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," Mukherjee said.

During the April-June quarter, the attrition rate of TCS went up to 15.9%, a level not seen in the past eight quarters.

"Work has to be challenging and you have to keep them motivated. TCS allows rotation and faster ones are in the pipeline," added Mukherjee.

By curtailing the duration an employee works on a project to around a year, TCS can find a place among "the most flexible companies to work" in the Indian IT sector.

Rotating the personnel among projects swiftly, those working onshore and offshore, can help lower attrition rate in big IT companies like TCS as it is difficult for them to modify benefits or salary composition frequently.

"It could help lower attrition since being unable to get off a project does cause people to leave," said an analyst with a Mumbai-based brokerage firm.

"But if they bring down minimum time spent on a project too much, it could upset clients, who typically prefer the people on their projects to stay for a while," the analyst added.

The Mumbai-based TCS said that it would offer training to more than 1 lakh employees this year in the fast growing digital technologies. It aims to increase its revenue from digital segment to $5 billion over the next five years.

Total eIn July, "Baahubali - the Beginning" released in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalammployee count of TCS stood at 3,24,935 at the end of the June quarter.