TCS will continue to hire despite decrease in headcount: CHRO Lakkad

Milind Lakkad says TCS has begun FY25 campus hiring and given offer letters to 11,000 freshers

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information-technology (IT) services firm, has reported a dip in its headcount in three consecutive quarters.

But, perhaps for the first time, Milind Lakkad, chief human relations officer (CHRO), said the company would continue to hire in the same strength it did in the past.

“Even in FY23 we hired a lot of people from a gross addition point of view. We are saying that FY25 will be better than FY24,” said Lakkad in an interview with Business Standard.

However, he refrained from giving the numbers on gross hiring the firm did in FY24.

In Q4FY24 TCS’s headcount was down by 1,759 on a sequential basis.

In Q3 the firm’s headcount dipped by 5,580. In 2023-24 TCS’s headcount was down by 13,249 -- the first decline in the last 19 years.

TCS had begun its FY24 campus hiring and given offer letters to 11,000 freshers, he added.

“TCS NQT (national qualifier test) will also start and through that we will add more. My plan is to go for 40,000 but we will have a better idea as we go ahead,” he added.

In the case of TCS, traditional headcount addition has been indicative of the growth trajectory of the company.

Lakkad, however, said the recent drop was because of excess hiring done in the past few years, a continuing drive towards increasing productivity and better utilisation, and finally the macro business environment.

“Though the headcount has gone down we have managed to grow because of efficiency, productivity and investments done in the past,” he added.

When asked to comment on the recent case filed by an employee in the US on grounds of discrimination, Lakkad refused to respond because the case is in court.

He added TCS had been continuously hiring in the US. Since the pandemic TCS hired around 20,000 locals there. “Our model of hiring locally and globally is working well. We hired 1,100 people in the US in this quarter (Q4FY24),” said.

He added at the start of the pandemic, since many could not travel the company had to hire a lot of contractors, but such hiring had come down.

Lakkad, who will complete five years as CHRO of TCS, said over this period the company’s focus had been to create full stack professionals and developers. He also said the current shift in technology meant the ability to learn had to be core to every employee who joined the company.

“Talent development has been a strategic initiative since inception. Now the focus is to take this to the next level. And part of this is to make sure that we link learning with career. Lifelong learning is core for us.”

Part of this learnability is upskilling on artificial intelligence (AI). Lakkad said so far 300,000 employees had been trained in basic AI skills.

“AI will be the very fabric of the company. We are ensuring that everybody in the organisation has foundational skills and then we build expertise on it,” he added.

When asked if GenAI will affect hiring, Lakkad said: “I do not see any change in the volumes of hiring we do. I only see change in roles. There is so much work that needs to be done. The number of companies carrying technology debt is huge.”

Hiring numbers
 

601,546: TCS’ total headcount
 

1,759: Sequential headcount reduction
 

In FY24, the company had strong gross hiring
 

11,000: Offer letters given to freshers for FY25
 

1,100: Hired in the US in Q4FY24