Women Attrition Higher than Men says TCS; End of WFH Probable Cause

By: WE Staff | Thursday, 8 June 2023

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the largest technology company in India, said that attrition rates among its female employees have surpassed the number of male employees. The main reason for this situation is the end of work-from-home (WFH) policies.

TCS's Chief Human Resources Officer, Millind Lakkad stated about this issue. He said that earlier attrition of women has comparatively been lower than men, they made up over 35 per cent of the workforce of over 60,000. Millind has also stated that some women may not have been able to return to the office even after normalcy has been restored because of the domestic arrangements that had been reset during the pandemic.

Millind further added that TCS believes in gender diversity and to acknowledge the setback to the company's efforts, they are working to reverse this trend of attrition. The annual report did not provide precise attrition numbers. Although it gradually increased in the middle of the previous fiscal year, overall attrition had dropped to over 20 per cent by the end of March.

Development programs such as 'iExcel' has been implemented to address this problem by TCS. The annual report made note of the fact that 1,450 female executives have benefitted from the 22 editions of this program's flagship executive leadership development. Despite making up only 14 per cent of the applicant pool, women held nearly 25 per cent of the internal leadership positions that were filled in FY23 which is commendable.

Women made up to 38.1 per cent of TCS's net hires in FY23 as per the annual report. In addition to this, during the same fiscal year, nearly 14,000 job applications were submitted for positions through the "Rebegin" initiative, which is aimed at experienced women professionals returning to the workforce after taking a career break.

More than 13 per cent out of the 30,000 employees are women in senior management positions, reported by TCS. The company also provides flexible work arrangements for expectant females and people with disabilities.