Biswabijoy, an assistant consultant and project manager at Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) centre in Kolkata, has just returned from Australia after recording a music album with an Australian band. The band, comprising his colleagues from TCS, received financial and infrastructure support from the company on a regular basis.
"I have been into music even before I started working at TCS. Initially, I was busy with work, but I wanted to pursue music as well. Thankfully, TCS had a music group for a long time. During various meeting, I met like-minded people and eventually set up a band. So far, we have had five to six rock concerts across TCS offices in India," says Biswabijoy.
These, and many such initiatives, are increasingly becoming a part of the efforts of India’s largest IT services provider to connect more than 200,000 of its employees across the globe.
TCS has had an internal communication system for employees to connect with the management, and share their concerns and queries. The company is now building an integrated system that would allow employees to share their interests with others.
The online programme called ‘@TCS’, launched a few months ago, would show the softer side of the $8.2-billion firm. "The idea to connect the huge employee base in a casual way gels with our overall theme of ‘realising your potential’. We have a huge employee base, and some of the talent we have is amazing. The idea is to bring forth the talent, be it music, writing or dancing," said Pradipta Bagchi, vice-president and head (global communications).
To start with, @TCS would allow employees to share personal information---post photographs, blogs and comments on any topic. After a few weeks, the portal would also allow employees to upload user-generated videos.
Another initiative is the ‘Great India Food Guide’. "TCS has people travelling to almost all parts of the globe. As Indians, we want to know if we can get Indian food in those regions. The Great Indian Food Guide would list all possible Indian food joints in any of these places," adds Bagchi. The programme, launched a few weeks ago, already has 50-60 listings of Indian hotels across the globe.
Such interaction and communication is increasingly becoming important for firms in general, and IT services in particular. Indian IT services have a huge base of employees, the average age being 22 to 26 years. Keeping this group involved in the company is one of the biggest challenges for firms.
Infosys has its own version of Facebook, the Infosys ‘Bubble’, which allows employees to share their views, photos, moods and blogs. Wipro, too, has its own employee network profile called ‘My Wipro Connect’.
At TCS, the communications team managing the effort wants to take these initiatives a step ahead to project the true nature of the firm as a global employer. In a few months, @TCS would be launched in Spanish, Chinese and German. "We are a global company and this initiative is for all TCSers. We are working with our tech team to use technology that would allow instant translation of anything on the network in all possible languages. So far, the majority of updates is from India. But this would eventually spread to other centres as well," adds Bagchi.
Among the several upcoming programmes, Bagchi adds his team is planning to create a corporate social responsibility (CSR) corner. "This is not about me asking people to talk about their CSR initiatives, but the other way round. Employees can come and post on some social issue they have worked on. This would be an individual-driven attempt," he says.
Within all this networking activity, the company is also evaluating setting up an e-commerce portal. "This is only for employees. We already have branded products like t-shirts, bags, and other gear. We have had a system since the last five to six years, but we plan to revamp it. As I said, we have everything within the company. This initiative would only try and get a single view of all these efforts, and allow employees to connect together," says Bagchi.