IT Employees Union Oppose TCS’ 225 Billing Days Mandate

The All India IT & ITeS Employees' Union (AIITEU) is opposing TCS’ updated talent deployment policy mandating 225 days of billing employees. The union terms the move to justify anti-worker policy and an effort to downsize teams.

TCS, in its updated talent deployment policy, mandates 225 billing days of billing for employees, essentially capping the bench time to 35 days in a year. The updated policy was notified on 12 June to employees.

“The policy also has an ulterior motive of transferring the responsibility to ensure adequate billability from the RMG to the employees. It is an attempt by TCS management to justify the organisation's anti-worker policy of Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) that the management often resorts to during downsizing,” AIITEU said.

The policy underscores that it is the primary responsibility of the employees to proactively engage with the Resource Management Group to seek allocation, even prior to their release date, and take initiative in pursuing opportunities. All the freshers, too, are required to be actively deployed.

“While I understand bench time has to be reduced, it is still the company’s responsibility to assign billable work, and employees can be expected to be proactive. But shifting responsibility onto employees and introducing disciplinary action is a dumb move,” a TCS employee told NDTV Profit on condition of anonymity.

An employee wouldn’t be completely aware of the projects available across locations, and the portal to figure this out is also not real-time. While employees with good networking skills would figure it out, other employees would be left out. In addition, it's even harder for the freshers who have just entered the system, the employee argues.

The company warns that if the employees fail to comply with the deployment policy, action will be taken. “In the event of an associate's failure to comply with the provisions of this policy, the organisation reserves the right to take disciplinary action—including cessation of service, as per the organisation's disciplinary action framework,” the policy document sent to employees read.

The union opposing the move said, “The RMG of TCS is known to be responsible for ensuring adequate billability of the employees. AIITEU strongly opposes the consistent onslaught on workers' rights by the MNCs, who only focus on safeguarding profits and wealth through intensifying the exploitation of their workers.”