Even as the global business activities witnessed degrowth with pay cuts and layoff last fiscal following the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, salaries of top management at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) swelled over 50% in FY21.
The pay hike is mainly attributed to the rise in high-value customers demanding massive technology upgrades. India's largest IT services provider by revenue also posted strong growth last fiscal. TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan's total salary which also includes perquisites and commissions-increased by 52% to Rs 20.3 crore, from Rs 13.3 crore in FY20, as per the company's annual report released on Wednesday.
Gopinathan compensation for the fiscal ended March 31 included Rs 1.27 crore in salary, Rs 2.09 crore in perquisites and Rs 17 crore in commission, the report showed. Also the pay package of the company chief operating officer (COO) N Ganapathy Subramaniam increased 59% to Rs 16.1 crore in FY21 from Rs 10.1 crore in FY20. His compensation package included Rs 1.21 crore in salary, Rs 1.88 crore in benefits, perquisites and allowances, and Rs 13 crore in commission.
V Ramakrishnan, TCS' former chief financial officer (CFO) who retired in April, also saw an increase of 60% in compensation. The company did not, however, provide his salary break-up in the report. The average increase in TCS' managerial remuneration for FY21 was 55.22%.
The hike in total compensation for independent and other executive directors was between 15% and 42%, much higher than the average 6% in FY20, the report showed.
While Gopinathan's remuneration was 16% lower in FY20 he had earned Rs 16 crore in 2018-19. Similarly, Subramaniam's income had also dipped 12.9% in FY20. This was because in FY20, while salaries and perquisites were not cut, the variable commissions of top managers were trimmed, resulting in an overall decline in their pay packets.
Gopinath's commission in FY20 fell to Rs 10 crore compared to Rs 13 crore in FY19, while Subramaniam's commission fell to Rs 7 crore in FY20, from Rs 9 crore in FY19. Also as per the report, managerial remuneration overall dropped by 15% on average in FY20 because of economic uncertainty following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the last quarter of the fiscal year (January-March 2020), TCS said.
According to the report TCS employees received two salary increases in the financial year 2020-21. According to the annual report, “the average annual increase was 5.2% in India.” However, during the course of the year, the total increase is approximately 6.4%, after accounting for promotions and other event-based compensation revisions, it added.
Employees outside India received a wage increase varying from 2% to 6%, the report said. The percentage increase in the median remuneration of employees in FY21 was 0.03%.
