A senior official from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said that the company is not considering any layoffs as it believes in grooming talent for longer careers once it hires an employee.

The company is also looking to hire startup employees who have lost their jobs, its chief Human Resources officer Milind Lakkad told PTI in an interview.

The comments have come amid IT companies, including big tech giants, the world over laying off people due to a slew of reasons.

“We don’t do that (layoffs), we believe in grooming talent in the company (there will be) no layoffs,” Lakkad said, replying to a specific question on whether there will be layoffs or involuntary attrition.

He said TCS is “cautious” while hiring and believes that once a staff member joins, it is the company’s responsibility to make them productive and derive value. He pointed out that some companies are forced to take such steps because they overhire.

According to him, the company believes in training the employees in case any gap is found in the skill sets required.

The company is specifically looking for talent in user experience design, artificial intelligence, cloud, and product. “We are getting it obviously from startups, people who have actually done some good work in those companies and have short-term career challenges,” he said.

To a question on whether the decline of over 2,000 staffers in overall employee count in the December quarter was a one-off, Lakkad declined to specify if the March quarter will have an addition or continue with a decline.

He explained that over the last year, it has hired over two lakh people including 1.19 lakh trainees, who are still getting into billable projects and hence, the slowdown in new hires resulted in the decline.

On moonlighting by employees, Lakkad said action against potential violators is taking place at TCS and it is accumulating data on the same.

At present, close to 40 percent of the staff work from offices three times a week and 60 percent come two times a week, Lakkad said.

“I expect these numbers (of those working from offices) to increase. By Q1 (FY24) it will significantly go up. by Q2 of FY24, we will decide the way forward,” he added.