Tata Consultancy Services

Philosophy of Holistic Human Resource Development: Nurturing
Consultants / Managers
Apart from the advanced rational management of software development and system
services on a large scale, TCS has had the philosophy, since the time of Mr. Kohli, to
nurture and utilize the human resource potential.
Software development, as we all know, requires a high level of knowledge. Essentially,
―software engineers‖ is a specialist group. However, in case of TCS, along with being
specialists, human resources are further trained to acquire consulting or managerial
skills. In concrete terms, even university graduates are allocated for the first two years
to domains which are different from their specialized fields at university. It does not
restrict the training to narrow areas of specialization, which are immediately required.
The reason for this is that if it lays emphasis on specialization in a specific field, then
when the technology in that field becomes obsolete, even the human resources become
redundant. The philosophy of nurturing individuals holistically without making them
redundant on an ad hoc basis can be seen here. Of course, at present, with TCS
globalizing rapidly and becoming a multinational with people from across the world
joining it, it is not easy for it to implement this philosophy across the entire
organization.
Mr. Kohli advocated the nurturing of the ―TCS Engineer Brand‖. That is because not
just specialized knowledge but an all-round intellect is required for developing solutions
that can satisfy customers. To do so, improvement of multiple and holistic skills are
highly necessary. These skills cannot be cultivated by conducting a one-time training,
but continuous training is required to hone these skills. As mentioned earlier, even in
the interview that I had in TRDDC, the research specialist said, ―The enterprise and
social problems themselves are complex, and it is necessary to arrive at solutions based
on a multifaceted understanding‖.
It is well-known that TCS spends a great deal of money to train its human resources,
and it spent 6% of its revenues in 1998 on human resource training, such as research,
etc. Besides investing in training of its own staff, TCS also provides financial support to
research programs of top advanced educational institutions such as IIT and IISc. As
part of information exchange programs, TCS employees are constantly interacting with
professors and students in advanced educational institutions. From the national and
social perspective, it implies enhancing the education level of Indians holistically. This
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