TCS to double salaries to reduce pay gap among staff

The tech sector is going through a tough phase recently, as many companies announced large-scale layoffs to cut costs and survive in the current economic conditions. However, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) remains an exception as, amid the challenging job market, the company is not only continuing to hire employees but is also working to reduce the pay gap for its employees. It is common for there to be a pay disparity between junior and senior employees in a company. However, TCS seeks to end this problem.

TCS CHRO on Reducing the Pay Gap

TCS has more than 6 lakh employees across the globe, and the company's strategy is to invest in its in-house talent and give them a chance to shine rather than spend on offering massive raises to freshmen.

Milind Lakkad, speaking about the company's plans to reduce the pay gap between employees, told Moneycontrol: "Those two years of instant gratification were definitely there. While we lost people because they were getting X per cent more somewhere, we also hired people, not with that kind of increase, but there was some increase definitely. We also ensured that internally people get the opportunity to upgrade their compensation through various initiatives, to reduce disparity internally."

The report states that TCS plans to enrol more employees, of varying experience levels, in its existing programs to offer them the opportunity to double what they currently earn. However, only about 10 per cent of people per year can delete these top-level programs on their first try.

TCS's talent development program, Elevate, is often in the news. The Moneycontrol report suggests that almost 400,000 employees have signed up for the program, and their experience ranges from 0 to 12 years. People who manage to meet the high bar assessment get double their salaries immediately.

Lakkad also shared that, according to him, employees with 4 to 12 years of experience could become specialists in areas like technology, cybersecurity, IoT, analytics and AI after the end of the program. They can choose the industry they want to focus on.

He added that the employee's pay hike in the middle category is not instantaneous. "So basically, they get a part of the kicker and will get the remaining kicker when they get deployed to that role," he said.