TCS fires 16 employees, bans 6 vendors in bribes-for-jobs scam

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has sacked 16 employees for code of conduct violations after the software giant concluded its investigation into the bribe-for-job scandal.

In June, India's largest IT services company launched a review to examine allegations pertaining to the Resource Management function.

"Our investigation found 19 employees to be involved and action has been taken against all as detailed here - 16 employees have been separated from the Company for code of conduct violations, and 3 employees have been removed from the Resource Management function," TCS says in a stock exchange filing.

Also, six vendor entities, their owners and affiliates have been debarred from doing any business with TCS.

TCS says it will continue to enhance its governance measures including regular rotation of personnel performing key roles in the Resource Management function, enhanced analytics on supplier management, periodic declarations by vendors on compliance to the Tata Code of Conduct and know your supplier process to cover additional declarations and vendor management process audits.

The IT firm says this does not involve any fraud by or against the company and there is no financial impact. The issue relates to breach of company's code of conduct by certain employees and vendors supplying contractors and no key managerial person of the company has been found to be involved, it says

"As a Tata Group company, we have zero-tolerance policy towards such unethical conduct and the actions of these individuals do not reflect our values. We expect all our stakeholders and our employees to strictly adhere to the Tata Code of Conduct, which forms the bedrock of our integrity," says TCS.

This comes days after the IT firm has asked its employees to come to the office. "We have hired a large number of people over the last three years. For most of the time, they were working in hybrid mode. We strongly believe that they need to come to work so that the new workforce gets integrated into TCS's larger workforce. That is the only way they will understand, learn and internalise the TCS values and the TCS way," says Milind Lakkad, chief human resource officer, TCS.

Lakkad, however, says the company will continue to assess the work models and evolve depending on what works best for its customers and employees. "We are asking people to come to work on all days in a week," he adds.

TCS' workforce stood at 6,08,985 as of September 30, dropping by 6,333 compared to 615,318 in the June quarter. "We have been investing heavily in fresh talent. That investment is now paying off. We have recalibrated our hiring numbers due to reduced attrition. Our total hiring is less than our attrition this quarter, hence the negative number," says Lakkad.