Coronavirus impact: TCS not to retrench employees, freezes salary hikes

Largest Indian software exporter TCS on Thursday said it will not retrench any of its nearly 450,000 employees, but has decided not to give any salary hikes this year.

The Tata group company said it will honour each of its commitments on new hires by taking all the 40,000 people who have been given offers on board, unlike some other blue-chip companies that are reportedly having a relook.

The company reported a healthy profit jump for the March quarter, but hinted at very difficult time in the first two quarters of the current fiscal due to Covid-19 crisis, including a revenue contraction.

"Every offer that we have made will be honoured. We do not see any retrenchments," TCS MD and CEO Rajesh Gopinathan told reporters over a call.

Its head of human resources Milind Lakkad elaborated that it has given out 40,000 offers to freshers and all of them will be onboarded as the year proceeds ahead.

Typically, colleges and universities will be on till June, and then the students will start joining, he added.

However, in what may come as a dampener to the employees, it has decided to put salary hikes on hold, Lakkad said.

"We have decided not to give any salary hikes this time," he said.

Gopinathan said the company has an overall attrition of 12.1 per cent, which is one of the best in the industry and affirmed commitment to look after the employees and appreciated their commitment to the company in its hour of crisis.

The company's chief operating officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam said there are 355,000 lakh employees working in India at present, and 90 per cent of them are now connected with secure workplaces to serve clients' needs.

He also added that in the initial trends, the company has observed that productivity has increased in the new model of its associates working from home.

The COO said there are many learnings for the company on various aspects, including on why to have all the associates working from a single office and others as well, which will be taken on board in the future as well.