Cyrus attributes TCS's record attrition to industry growth

Shareholders want to know what plans does company have to address the issue

Cyrus Mistry, chairman Tata Group faced some uncomfortable questions on his birthday on Tuesday.

At the annual general meeting for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), while many wished him many happy returns of the day some also wanted to know how the attrition at India largest software exporter reached record 14.9 per cent in last financial.

It was actually a sharp jump from 11.3 per cent in the previous year. These shareholders wanted to know what plans does the company have to address the issue.

“The high attrition is largely due to rapid growth in the industry,” said Cyrus Mistry, chairman at the largest software exporter in the country promising best efforts to check the attrition level.

The company also paid one-time bonus of Rs 2,628 crore (Rs 26.28 billion) to employees marking 10th anniversary of its listing on India biggest stock exchange in 2004. The payment that was announced in April this year was probably the biggest ever bonus payout by an Indian companies to its employees in which it gifted staffers one week’s salary for every year of service completed. Mistry however denied this as an effort for employee retention. “This was purely to reward the loyal employees,” said Mistry.

The company now also aims to train 100,000 employees in digital technologies to seek faster growth in this emerging space.

“We have built a number of digital platforms and will have 100,000 employees trained in digital technologies this year,” said N Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer at TCS. The company has been running online training programmes for digital skills for a while.

TCS employees underwent 2.59 million days of online training in technologies and domains resulting in: 72,000 new certification, 400,000 courses completed and more than 120,000 competencies acquired in the last financial year.