Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is now making headlines for all the wrong reasons. It has been brought to light by a whistleblower that the global head of the IT major’s resource management group (RMG), has been taking bribes from staffing agencies for a long time now.
The RMG is the group that handles the hiring within the organisation, and places one person per minute on average! The division has about 3,000 employees and is responsible for placing over a thousand engineers and new hires on projects on a daily basis.
Not surprisingly then, as per a Mint report, an internal committee was put together to investigate the allegations. The committee consisted of three members, including Ajit Menon, chief information security officer (CIO).
Following thorough investigation spread over a few weeks, the head of recruitment was sent on leave, while four senior officials of the RMG were fired. Three staffing firms were also blacklisted.
The concerned head can no longer enter the office. It is pertinent to mention here that he has been with TCS since 1997.Another RMG official was also shown the door.
It is alleged that those part of the scam may have managed to make a total of at least Rs 100 crore, that is, $14 million in commissions, over a span of three years. After all, the firm has been adding 50,000 employees a year on an average.
Meanwhile, TCS has clarified that the recruitment activities in TCS are not handled by the Resource Management Group (RMG) as alleged, therefore the reference to alleged scam in recruitment process is incorrect. As per a company statement, RMG is responsible for allocation of available resources to various projects and in case of any shortfall, fill such requirements through contractors. The complaint referred to relates to hiring of such contract resources employed by the contractors.
On receipt of the complaint, TCS had launched a review to examine the allegations and based on the same stated: (i) this does not involve any fraud by or against the Company and no financial impact; (ii) the issue relates to breach of Company’s Code of Conduct by certain employees and vendors providing contractors; and (iii) no key managerial person of the Company has been found to be involved.
