The Hindu Business Line : Need to address wage inflation in sector: TCS

The average wage inflation of 15 per cent per annum in the technology sector is a cause for concern that the industry needs to address collectively, according to Mr S. Padmanabhan, Executive Vice President Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

The growth scenario in China is 7-8 per cent, Brazil (6-7 per cent) and Eastern Europe (4-5 per cent). ConsideringIndia's starting point, which is still low, one has to see the sustainability of this high wage inflation. The situation is mainly because there is shortage of talent, according to him.

Mr Padmanabhan, who heads TCS's Global Human Resources Development, was addressing the National Conference of Executive Recruiters Association. Business Line was the media partner to the event. He said that "as a company set to recruit 30,000 people during the year, we need to check such inflationary growth".

TCS has decided to increase the cross-cultural mix in its human resources. TCS expects to grow th number of employees drawn from different countries to about 8.5 per cent this year from 6.5 per cent. Of the planned addition of 30,000 people, 4,000 will be from countries such as China, Hungary, Poland and Latin America.

`Shift in function'

"From an Indian technology service provider serving multinational corporations, there has been a shift in terms of the way we function. As a result, the company board has decided that at least 10 per cent of the company HR is inducted from overseas or from markets where we operate." he said.

Managing cross-cultural staff is quite tough, as each country has a distinct local culture. For instance, if we were to communicate about local issues, we cannot use the same methodologies followed in India, which we believe have been honed to be the best. Therefore, we are evolving local manuals," he said.

"Consequently, we have recruited a Chinese American to head China operations, and a Hungarian to head the Brazilian centre. Even a word like spouse cannot be used everywhere as this is alien to some countries. They refer them as partner, when it comes to travel allowance etc," he said.

"During the last two years, TCS has embarked on inorganic route with acquisitions. Integrating workers of different cultures and getting the best out of them is tough. To address this, we have set up training centres in Ireland, US and Hungary and now ensure that there are at least two-three persons from the local centre in a team," he said.

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