With the economy clearly showing early recovery signs, the country's largest software exporter TCS has decided to unlock its purse strings and hire as many as 40,000 freshers from campuses in the country in the financial year 2021-22.
The company, already the largest employer in the private sector with over 5 lakh employees, last year also hired 40,000 graduates from campuses and is likely better that number this year, TCS chief of global human resources Milind Lakkad said.
According to Lakkad, the Covid pandemic-related restrictions do not pose any difficulties in hiring and added that last year, a total of 3.6 lakh freshers have appeared for an entrance test virtually. “From the campus in India, we hired 40,000 last year. We will continue to hire and hire 40,000 or more this year in India,” Lakkad said, adding that lateral hiring will also be “robust” this year.
Lakkad said a lot of planning goes into hiring from campuses and it is not ‘just-in-time' hiring when a business deal gets signed up, and typically it takes over three months before a resource gets on a project.
Meanwhile, as per TCS chief operating officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam, there is no dearth of talent supply in India and also disagreed with concerns about its cost. He termed Indian talent as “phenomenal” given their skill sets and the work culture.
Its chief executive and managing director Rajesh Gopinathan has on various occasions clarified that the way the company is structured makes it possible from a management and nimble-footedness perspective.
TCS has broken the organisation into small, autonomous entities with support from the top which helps take care of challenges, he said, pointing out that several entities like the railways, armed forces and political parties function with large pools of people.
Lakkad said the company expects the very low attrition of 8% levels to go up once the situation normalises, adding that the normal levels are between 11-12%. Even if the attrition goes up, the company's operating model can ensure that the work or margins are not impacted, he added.
