TCS CEO and MD, K Krithivasan, on Tuesday underlined the importance of employees coming back to office as it leads to better team building and lesrnings. He said that the company had overlooked the importance of informal conversation that happens between employees, which needs to be corrected.
In a fireside chat at the Nasscom Technology and Leadership Forum, Krithivasan, said, “Within TCS we value collaboration and camaraderie of employees. Things were getting back to normal, but our associates still worked from home, and we missed collaboration and camaraderie. While zoom and teams are very efficient tools, we overlook the informal conversation – the chitchat that happens at office”.
He added that 30%-40% associates joined in last 2-3 years, and for the first two years they have not even come to the office. “If they don’t come to office what is the value that they will stand for,” he asked.
Krithivasan said that most important training comes to employees when they see how seniors behave in certain situations, like how best to handle a given client situation. That can’t be taught by other forms of training. He added that almost all customers of TCS want employees to work from office.
Speaking about global market, Krithivasan, said, “We are continuing to be cautiously optimistic – more in the medium term than the long term. There is so much of technology work and modernisation left to be done. Everyone wants to leverage Gen AI. So we have lot of opportunities”.
Speaking about short term outlook, he said it is too difficult to take a call. “Next year will be better than this year. Reason being in some of the large industry verticals, we have started seeing early green shoots”.
When asked about decoupling between revenue vis-a-vis headcount, Krithivasan said, decoupling is a strong word even as FY24 is seeing lower number in terms of hiring of employees in recent years. “Many of the organisations have hired ahead of the curve and need. As demands has stabilised, we started using our existing workforce ie the bench”.
