TCS sounds final call for staff to work from office

MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has extended the period by which employees should return to office by another quarter, to March end, but has informed them that this will be the last deadline for doing so. Failure to resume work from office (WFO) by then will lead to "consequences," chief operating officer NG Subramaniam, told ET, citing work culture as well as security issues. "We are exercising patience but have taken a principled stand that employees have to get back to offices," he said. "We have sent employees the final communication on this and if they do not, there will be consequences to face."

He said working from home made employees and employers vulnerable. With the kind of cyberattacks in today's context, an organisation can inadvertently get into trouble," he said. "One cannot have the kind of controls at home and there can be security risks to businesses. In the fiscal third quarter, India's second largest IT firm Infosys said one of its US units was affected by a cyber security issue, resulting in the unavailability of several applications. In December, HCLTech reported a ransomware incident, adding that it had made no impact.

TCS is aiming to revive the pre-pandemic work culture in a shift away from the 25-by-25 hybrid model it had announced during the Covid-19 outbreak. It had said in 2020 that once all employees returned to office, a fourth of them would work from home by 2025. At the December quarter earnings announcement on January 11, the company said 65% of the workforce had been coming to the office up to three days a week.