BackTCS faces questions on harassment, pay disparity
Tata Sons chief Chandrasekaran says while TCS has zero tolerance towards harassment, the uptick in cases could be due to more employees expressing themselves
PremiumMUMBAI:India’s largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) faced questions related to the rise in harassment cases and the difference in median salaries of men and women empl-oyees. Chairman of Tata Sons, Natarajan Chandrasekaran concurred that while TCS, with more than 600,000 employees, has zero tolerance towards harassment, the uptick in cases could be due to more employees expressing themselves.
He also denied any conscious disparity in salaries based on gender.
“...we are operating in such a global environment. We are also operating with...six lakh-plus professionals and the company constantly is enforcing and encouraging a culture of openness. We always want people to express themselves and, in the process, if there is harassment, people should raise and when they raise, the number is likely to go up," he said in an annual general meeting on Friday.
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He was responding to a shareholder’s question on the rise in POSH cases.
The total number of complaints reported under Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibit-ion and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH) in FY2023-24 were 110 vs 49 in FY2022-23. However, according to TCS’ annual report, FY2023-24 figures include ones reported globally by employees and for FY2022-23, information is for TCS’ India operations, excluding non-wholly owned subsidiaries.
The chairman added that for a company as large as TCS “this number of cases is expected to happen...And the main thing is how do we continue to invest in education of people how do we deal with these cases with zero tolerance and how do we continue to reinforce both the culture, education and also the actions that we take how do we ensure that people are aware of that so that we create a culture of healthy working atmosphere."
Also Read: Tata’s Chandrasekaran expresses deep pain over job scam at TCS
The firm with 601,546 employees has employees from around 152 nationalities with women making up 35.6% of the employee base.
The shareholder asked if remote working could solve the problem. “In spite of all the trainings, etc. is it not possible…work from office is a contribution to that…Why TCS is hesitant on the remote working policy because the argument of culture and sense of belonging seems difficult to digest…," the shareholder said.
Chandrasekaran seems reluctant to accept remote working as a way to reduce harassment
Chandrasekaran, also the chairman of TCS, seemed reluctant to accept remote working as a way to reduce harassment. “I don’t think that we can go to remote working to solve this problem…We are not trying to create jobs for people, we are trying to create careers for people. This company is about building an institution…In order to continue this being a very strong institution, we need to ensure that we invest in people at the same time people also build their careers with a company like us."
TCS used office check-ins as one of the metrics to determine pay hikes. According to a Mint report dated 18 April, TCS employees who would dutifully report to offices received higher pay hikes than those who did not. TCS later communicated to employees that those employees with less than 60% attendance at office, or less than three out of five days at office, would not receive performance bonus.
The company’s median salary differentiation for its male and female employees also came under scrutiny. To a question on why the median salaries of male employees who are not on the Board or key managerial personnel was ₹14.8 lakh versus ₹10.4 lakh for women, the chairman denied any bias.
“TCS treats everyone fairly and everyone equally. If there is a difference within a particular (salary) band it is because within that particular (salary) band there may be a difference in experience and level, etc. Otherwise, there is absolutely no difference in the way they are treated. In fact, we would like more women," he said at the AGM.
The chairman stressed that the firm would like more women at the senior level. “It was our constant endeavour. While we have a 36% women workforce in the company, we would like to increase that further and also we would like to see more women in the top layers of the company so the efforts are on."
The IT sector has seen the share of women employees hover around 36-39% in the last one year. Gender and diversity experts have cautioned that the sector which boasts of high representation of women, is seeing exits in the middle and senior levels. While a push for work from the office for more days of the week will add to dropouts, the IT sector needs to take note of its women employees who are upskilling themselves to escape redundancy.
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