End of remote work pushes women to drop out at TCS, India’s largest IT firm

An end to remote work at India’s largest software firm had an unintended causality — more female employees decided not to return to the office than male peers.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. saw higher attrition among women when it called employees back to work after the pandemic. That’s unusual for the IT giant, where female attrition has historically been either lower or similar to their male counterparts.

“I would think working from home during the pandemic reset the domestic arrangements for some women, keeping them from returning to office,” Chief Human Resources Officer of TCS Milind Lakkad said in the company’s annual report last week. “It is a setback to our efforts to promote gender diversity, but we are doubling down on it.”

The flexibility to work remotely in recent years has helped companies attract and retain talent, particularly women, as they found it easier to juggle office and home duties in a hybrid environment.

The shift now is making them drop out of the workforce, worsening an already low participation in workforce.

At 24 percent, India’s female labor force participation is much lower than 61 percent in China, according to World Bank data. That’s a risk for economic growth in the world’s most-populous nation, where women comprise about half of the citizens.

Women make up about 36 percent of TCS employees, and the company is trying to increase their representation, including in leadership roles, Lakkad said.