Organizational Culture at TCS

Just as an organization needs the right talent to drive its business objectives, people need the right environment to grow and achieve their career goals. The moment the employee steps into TCS, he/she would be greeted with that unmistakable feeling of being at the right place. Along with that, working with TCS affords with a sense of certainty of a successful career that would be driven by boundless growth opportunities and exposure to cutting-edge technologies and learning possibilities. The work environment at TCS is built around the belief of growth beyond boundaries. Some of the critical elements that define the work culture are global exposure, cross-domain experience, and work-life balance. Each of these elements goes much deeper than what it ostensibly conveys. Culture potpourri: People from diverse backgrounds and geographies have come together in pursuit of a common vision. Open door policy: Our corporate culture is open and inclusive; irrespective of your experience, you will immediately be welcomed into the team, and would always have a significant role to play. On-the-job learning: Intense training and development programs facilitate on-the-job learning. Mentor programs: Our mentor programs foster supportive relationships that help develop skills, behavior, and insights to enable you to attain your goals. 'Global Family' identity What sets TCS apart is the support, encouragement, and nurturing provided to you at every step... just like a family. Community Services: Maitree was started with an objective of bringing TCS associates and their families closer and include them as a part of the TCS extended family.

Experience Certainty:
At TCS, achieve real business results are achieved that allow to transform, and not just maintain the operations. The IT services, business solutions and outsourcing bring a level of certainty that no other competitor can match. Clients will experience your requirements being met on time, within budget and with high quality; greater efficiency and responsiveness to business; and the ability to shift investment to strategic initiatives rather than tactical functions.

Career Path,Freedom to work across Domains:

At TCS, it has an established environment that focuses on individual aptitude, talent, and interests. As a proven practice, cross-domain experience is promoted that provides employees with opportunities to function across different industry verticals, service practices, and functional domains as well as varied technology platforms. While all these factors help hone the skills across platforms, they also offer customers a talent pool with expertise that exceeds their industry benchmarks; at the same time, they continuously present employees with the opportunity to explore the domain where they believe they would fit the best.

Work life balance:

Even as TCS concede that finding a perfect balance between career demands and personal life is not easy, TCS have extended the work culture to include 'life' as an integral part. The many work-life programs respond to the needs and aspirations of the employees while retaining fun as a key element. At TCS, employees strive to address the need for an increased flexibility in order to navigate the different spheres of life. A part of TCS' work-life balance programs, 'Maitree' actively promotes a series of scheduled fun and cultural events and activities, and also keenly promotes community development projects. While continuing on the initiative to strengthen the bond amongst TCS employees and ingrain fun as a significant part of the culture, employees participate in various initiatives to develop the community. At TCS, employees experience life from a holistic perspective and would consistently be awarded the opportunity to participate in various social development initiatives that touch many lives.

TCS Maitree:
Maitree was started with an objective of bringing TCS associates and their families closer and making them feel a part of the TCS extended family. Soon after, with a view to carry on the TATA tradition of enabling the community, the scope of Maitree was enhanced to include socially relevant activities and endeavors.

Over the years, Maitree has become a part of every TCS employee's life. From cracking quizzes to conquering tall peaks, from shaking a leg to bending it like Beckham, employees have reveled in the excitement and fun of all Maitree events. And that's not all. Workshops on theatre, yoga, origami, flower arrangement, chocolate making, and a host of others have allowed the employees to learn and know about things they always wanted to. All in all, Maitree provides everyone at TCS the opportunity to establish relationships that extend beyond work and thereby, help build bonds that makes work so much more fun.

Maitree - Even beyond the TCS Community:

In addition to working towards bringing our associates and their families closer, Maitree also strives to enable the development of the society. Our approach to social initiatives entails being pro-actively involved and working at the root level. Some of the projects we have undertaken include working with the differently-abled, aiding under-privileged children across various schools in Mumbai, and helping rural community in Vazapur, among others. Many programs initiated by Maitree, like employment opportunities for the differently-abled, HIV/AIDS sensitization, peer education, Green Audits to check the excess consumption of energy resources have now been accepted as best practices by the organization. The different initiatives are: y y y y Advanced Computer Training Centre for visually impaired at the MN Banajee Industrial Home for the Blind at Jogeshwari, Mumbai Rural Development Initiative (at Panvel) Thalassaemia Drive HIV AIDS awareness program

Innovation:
Cultural transformation is impossible without the leadership of top executives, so Tata created the Tata Group Innovation Forum (TGIF), a 12-member panel of senior Tata Group executives and some CEOs of the independently run companies. "TGIF's main objective is to inspire and share best practices" says Sunil Sinha, CEO of Tata Quality Management Services and a member of the forum. But executives also have employed other strategies to build a culture of innovation. Here's how they did so within TCS. First, leaders approached the challenge both top down and bottom up. TCS Chief Technology Officer Ananth Krishnan says this involved establishing formal systems for encouraging innovative thinking and processing of ideas. "If I come up with an innovation, whether it's an incremental or a disruptive idea, I need to know whom to go to with it, and there needs to be an organizational process for moving it forward," says Krishnan.

TCS created multiple channels, and managers are trained how to direct an employee's idea: incremental innovations are handled and funded by the business unit in which the idea originated; platform-level innovations that might extend an existing offering are directed to one of the company's 19 global innovation labs, leading-edge research centers focused on specific technology areas or business sectors. Disruptive ideas tend to originate in the labs, but if one emerged from a business unit it would be directed to a lab or funded through an incubator fund run by the CTO's office. How all of the ideas are evaluated and funded is almost less important than the fact that TCS employees know ideas are welcome and that good ones won't die in a pile on someone's desk. TCS has also incorporated innovation into its formal annual review process, making it one of the nine categories on which employees are evaluated. If an employee wins the company's Young Innovator Award, he or she will see more than a salary bump. "It certainly accelerates your career track," says Krishnan. "I might pluck you up and put you in one of our innovation labs."

Knowledge Sharing:
Knowledge management has been an integral part of the TCS culture and knowledge sharing is the buzz word. Knowmax is a platform provided to every TCS employee where they can go through various knowledge sharing sessions online and also can share their knowledge for the improvement of the organizational knowledge pool. There are also other platforms such as iCalms, IdeaMax etc.

Compensation and Benefits:

Leadership Review Management is used to evaluate the performance of leaders across the organization and TCS Gems are awarded to each employee on accomplishment of a milestone or any reward. The TCS Gems are redeemable according to the need of the employee.