India’s IT employees are being nudged to return to offices, but they’re also being surprised by the offices they’re being asked to return to.
TCS is forcefully transferring as many as 2,000 employees, IT employee rights organization Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) has alleged. The employees have allegedly being asked to report to locations other than their base locations without consulting with them. The affected employees are required to relocate to the new location within 14 days, or stand to have their salaries deducted, the body claims.
TCS has been sending emails to employees, informing them about their transfers to Mumbai among other locations. The emails state the transfers are necessary due to business requirements.
But the IT employee rights body doesn’t seem to agree. “We believe that TCS’s actions are unethical and in violation of labor laws. The company has not provided a valid reason for the transfers, and it has not given employees a fair opportunity to provide alternative solutions,” NITES’s complaint says.
“Normally company-initiated transfers are an outcome of a specific business requirement from clients. However, we have received complaints from employees stating that they have been transferred without any client project at hand,” Harpreet Saluja, president, NITES, told ET. Most of the affected employees are in the 1-2 year experience category, with a large section coming from Hyderabad base location.
TCS’ transfers come at a time when the company has been asking employees to return to offices. Many TCS employees had moved back to their hometowns when the pandemic had hit, but are now reluctant to return to base locations and their designated offices. TCS too had announced an ambitious plan in April 2020 through which 75% of their employee base would work from home by 2025. But the company appears to have largely dialed back on its remote plans, and begun calling employees back into offices. And with the company now also forcing employees to go to locations other than their base locations, it seems to be indicating that the pandemic-induced WFH largesse is largely over — and it’ll soon be a return to full-fledged in-office work at the IT major.
“We believe that TCS’s actions are unethical and in violation of labor laws. The company has not provided a valid reason for the transfers, and it has not given employees a fair opportunity to provide alternative solutions,” said the complaint, seen by ET. This comes at a time when the IT services sector, led by TCS, is urging employees to return to offices on all days of the week. TCS response on the allegations are awaited. TCS has been sending emails to employees, informing them about their transfer to Mumbai among other locations, NITES wrote in a complaint to the ministry. The emails state the transfers are necessary due to business requirements. However, no specific details are provided. Employees are required to report to the new location within two weeks, and will be reimbursed later, according to the emails seen by ET. NITES also stated that these requirements have put employees under financial and emotional stress. It has urged the ministry to investigate TCS’ transfer practices to determine if they are in violation of labour laws, and take requisite actions. A senior executive, who did not wish to be quoted, said this was a “routine” activity. “Such transfers are initiated based on present and future requirements in different locations and largely involve junior employees,” said the person. TCS has over 600,000 employees. Many of these employees had moved back to their home towns when organisations had allowed work from home during the pandemic. Several companies are having a tough time getting these employees to return to the base locations and to the offices now. ET has reported earlier that after TCS, other large firms including Infosys and Wipro have also mandated work from office for its employees, few days in a week. “Normally company-initiated transfers are an outcome of a specific business requirement from clients. However, we have received complaints from employees stating that they have been transferred without any client project at hand,” Harpreet Saluja, president, NITES, told ET. Saluja said that a bulk of the employees were already working from offices in their base locations. Most of the affected employees are in the 1-2 year experience category with a large section coming from Hyderabad base location.