One of India’s largest tech companies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), revealed that the company is witnessing a decline among its female employees after it hinted that the end of work-from-home seems to have contributed to it.
According to TCS's human resources officer, Milind Lakkad, women employees make up over 35 percent of the company's over 6 lakh employees. He pointed out that the attrition rate among women employees has been lower or almost similar to that among men and stated that the development was unusual.
Women Resign As WFH ends
In an interview published in TCS’s annual report, he observed that he thinks the work-from-home culture during the pandemic reset the domestic arrangements for some women, which now restrain them from returning to work even after the situation has been normalised.
Further, he acknowledged that the higher attrition among women employees was a setback to the TCS company’s efforts to promote gender diversity. He added that the Tata Group company was focusing on reversing the trend.
However, the annual report didn’t mention the exact attrition rate on a gender basis. It only mentioned that the attrition peaked in the middle of the fiscal year gone by and came down to over 20 per cent by March's end.
Lakkad said that the company focused on leadership development programmes like "iExcel," which is driving change in this regard. It was noted in the annual report that the flagship executive leadership development programme for women had completed 22 editions and benefited 1,450 women leaders.
He added that women nearly made up a fourth of the leadership positions fulfilled by internal candidates in the fiscal year 2023, despite the fact that they only account for 14 percent of the applicant pool.
He pointed out that this spoke for the quality of women candidates in TCS’s leadership pool and the supportive attitudes of the company in promoting gender diversity. He further added that 38.1 percent of TCS’s net hires in the fiscal year 2023 consisted of women employees.
The annual report also mentioned that "Rebegin," an initiative by TCS for experienced women professionals who are resuming the workforce after a break, saw almost 14,000 job applications in fiscal year 2023. Nearly 4,000 out of nearly 30,000 senior management employees, or over 13 percent, were women, according to the report.
The report also mentioned TCS’s implementation of a new policy on flexible work arrangements, which provided support and flexibility for carers of young children, expecting women employees, and people with disabilities. The company has also begun urging employees to resume working from the office to strengthen the organisational culture.
It’s a welcome move from one of the leading IT giants like TCS to be gender inclusive and ensure a comfortable workspace for women. With gender roles still persisting in society and domestic responsibilities perceived as a woman’s job in many households, several women struggle with work-life balance. One of the main reasons that women are forced to give up their careers is due to society's expectations.
TCS, being a prominent and influential company, coming up with initiatives to provide a supportive and flexible work environment for women employees and ensuring there is no discrimination with regard to hiring, promoting, and remuneration of women employees is encouraging and will serve as an example to other companies. Such programmes will motivate women to continue pursuing their careers, thus gradually leading to wholesome women empowerment.
Suggested Reading: Working Women Held Back By These 30 Biases: Study
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Views expressed by the author are their own
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