JOIN US"The overseas hiring will be similar to the ten per cent which we have done earlier," TCS's Global Head of Human Resources, Ajoyendra Mukherjee, told PTI. He, however, said the Tata Group company is yet to firm up a detailed plan on overseas hiring and will do so soon.
The announcement comes in the wake of outsourcing and the ensuing flight of jobs to cheap labour countries like India becoming a contentious issue in the developed world.
Mukherjee said the company is not yet faced with a mandatory local employee composition requirement in any of the geographies it operates in.
"As of now there is no such hard and fast rule where a percentage or a number has been given...there are talks that are going on like the 50:50 rule in the US, but no regulation yet," he said.
TCS hires people overseas based on merit depending on the job requirements, such as knowledge of the local language which is essential for certain projects in Latin America, he said, adding that non-Indians constitute 6.95 per cent of the company's total employee strength of over 1.98 lakh.
When asked if TCS was consciously keeping the number of overseas hires flat at 10 per cent because of the higher costs, he said, "You need locals for a particular job. Whatever the costs, you have to manage that."
During its annual results conference held last week, the company had said that it will also be hiring fresh graduates for its international operations, but declined to give a number. The company expects to improve on the lower-than-industry average of 14.4 per cent attrition it recorded last year, Mukherjee said, declining to disclose the targeted number which has been finalised.
"We will definitely bring it down this year and improve on our retention...we are not happy with that number (of 14.4 per cent attrition)," he said, adding that there will be higher attrition in the first quarter and early second quarter which is "cyclical" in nature.
The company, which has declared an annual pay hike between 12-14 per cent to its off-shore employees in India and also plans to hire 60,000 this fiscal, is expecting to maintain operating margins at 28 per cent in FY12 , he said.
TCS will be focusing on "non-linear" streams of business like selling products and rendering cloud-based services to SMEs which result in higher revenue per employee to improve the efficiencies, Mukherjee said.
The company will maintain a utilisation percentage in the 82-84 per cent range, excluding trainees, in FY 12, he said.