How TCS made 70% WFH employees return to office using variable pay

TCS linked its quarterly variable payout to employees with their attendance in the office in April 2024.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Chief HR Officer Milind Lakkad said that almost 70 per cent employees of the company who were working from home are back in office as the IT giant brought the new policy of linking variable pay to attendance. Although the measure is a temporary move and should be seen that way, he said.

Milind Lakkad, EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announces the Q1 financial results 2024-25 during a press conference, in Mumbai.(PTI)

TCS linked its quarterly variable payout to employees with their attendance in the office in April 2024. Under the new rule, those with less than 60 per cent attendance in office won’t be eligible for the quarterly bonus. The rule followed another policy update as per which the IT services giant mandated employees to work from the office five days a week.

Therefore, in order to receive full quarterly variable pay, employees were required to have a minimum of 85 per cent attendance in the. Employees with 75-85 per cent work from office attendance will receive 75 per cent of their variable pay and those with 60-75 per cent attendance will only get 50 per cent of their variable pay as per the changes that TCS brought in order to make more and more employees work from office.

Milind Lakkad said, “Today almost 70% of our employees are back in the office. I am not too much worried about the quantum or number of people not coming to the office and getting affected by this. This number is increasing every week I would say."

He explained, “I am not worried about that, people are realising the value of coming to office. Some of them are coming for the first time because they had joined during the pandemic. Everybody has to look at it positively. These aspects are temporary in nature from our standpoint and need to be looked at from that angle by everyone.”

TCS reported a 9 per cent year-on-year increase in net profit at ₹12,040 crore and 5.4 per cent rise in revenue from operations to ₹62,613 crore for the quarter.