High attrition of women in the IT industry says a lot about the lingering ghost of gender roles and lack of flexible policies. Companies can, and must, do better
On June 6, India’s largest tech company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), said in its annual report that the attrition of women in its 600,000-strong workforce has been higher than men. Chief Human Resources Officer Milind Lakkad called this “unusual”, given that attrition rates of women have been lower or similar to that of men. “Intuitively, I would think working from home during the pandemic reset the domestic arrangements for some women, keeping them from returning to office after everything normalised,” he said in the report, which did not receive the exact attrition numbers on the basis of gender.
Women occupy 23 percent leadership positions at TCS and make up 38 percent of the company’s net hire this year. They form 35.7 percent of the workforce at TCS, falling from 36.2 percent in early 2020. Interestingly, in the case of competitor Infosys, which offers a more flexible, hybrid work policy, the proportion of women has gone up from 37.8 percent in early 2020 to 39.6 percent today. Higher attrition among women in FY23 is a setback for TCS in their efforts to promote gender diversity and inclusion, said Lakkad.