Published on September 02, 2021
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is accelerating in its quest for creating a futuristic workforce through a robust and industrious talent acquisition, development and management framework. Milind Lakkad, Executive Vice President and Global Head - Human Resources, TCS, in a Leadership Series webinar on September 15, 2021, titled 'Building future ready workforce', explained how the IT giant is developing an engaged, resilient and future-proofed workforce.
The future workplace
Mr Lakkad began by elaborating on the future of work as envisaged by TCS. In the pandemic's aftermath, organisations will change their recruiting and staffing dynamics. He stressed that the trend of remote working has found increased acceptance and will continue. Also, the well-being of employees will receive increased emphasis, as evidenced by the post of chief well-being officer created by many companies. HR functions across the board will pay more attention to helping employees and their families tide over challenging situations.
Learning will become a chief driver of enterprise success, and an employee's versatility will fetch him or her a higher score. Analytics will be extensively used to evaluate employee productivity and align their competencies with the organisation's current needs. Talent fungibility or skill inventory will become the buzzword, and people will be considered for relevant assignments, irrespective of location and employment status. It would enable gig workers to also throw their hats in the ring for selection to critical roles. Organisations will prioritise resilience as much as efficiency.
Talent management
Mr Lakkad then went on to explain how TCS will manage its talent. A competency-based system may replace the grade-wise compensation structure. TCS is keen on developing a framework where associates are consistently measured for their competency levels and remunerated whenever they improve their skill sets. For instance, an individual joining as a ninja developer can receive a hike in compensation if he or she shows improvement in skills and competencies, irrespective of the time spent in the organisation.
Mr Lakkad emphasised that ground-up recruiting from campuses worldwide has been effective and will be persisted with. TCS will invest more resources into understanding the associates' aspirations and world views. He stressed the need to engage and translate the organisation's goals to enable the associate to sync it with their aspirations. Here, data would be a critical enabler for planning an associate's subsequent intervention or career movement.
Talent development
Talent development, associate mobility, and increased learning will be linked to each other. TCS is keen to create a workforce that is versatile and works efficiently in all situations and hierarchies. Also, understanding the customers' needs and finding solutions to their problems will be paramount for any associate's career growth.
Talent acquisition
TCS is also aiming for higher democratisation of the recruitment process. Apart from campus hiring, TCS is bullish on recruiting talent through employee referrals. It is also keen to hire interns and women coming back to work after taking a break to tend to familial responsibilities.
TCS will channelise its talent acquisition activities in a multi-pronged way. It is partnering with academic institutions and commercial enterprises offering niche services such as SAP, etc., to attract talent. Also, talent crowd-sourcing is another channel that TCS will explore in the future. The new associates will be orientated in the company through AI-enabled customised engagement. TCS' gamified hiring mechanism — Codevita, which has proven successful, will further complement a national hiring contest for lateral employee movements.
Mr Lakkad expressed confidence that TCS' future roadmap will further strengthen its core HR philosophy of driving 'engagement with purpose'. TCS will be able to provide its associates with a fulfilling career built on the foundation of lifelong learning, a value system-based working environment, and social collaboration both within and outside the company. Mr Lakkad was also confident that the fulfilling professional ecosystem that TCS endeavours to build would improve the associate's health and well-being and lead to a happier and satisfied workforce, which will boost efficiencies and strengthen the company's commercial goodwill.
The compelling insights from Mr Lakkad prompted some interesting questions from the attendees towards the end of the session.