Abstract

The case ‘Employee Happiness at TCS’ describes TCS’s focus on creating a happy, healthy, inclusive, and vibrant work culture. To create such a work culture, its HR team introduced employee engagement activities from time to time. The case touches upon employee engagement activities that encompassed various facets of the work culture and included regularly appreciating the performance of the employees, ensuring continuous communication and feedback to them, and offering them learning and development opportunities. TCS introduced the ‘Star of the Month’ program to recognize and appreciate the efforts of its employees on a regular basis. The company rolled out the ‘Pulse’ survey which provided an opportunity for the employees to grade their satisfaction levels across all aspects of the business. Employees at TCS could choose how, where, and when they learned through a range of different classroom sessions and options made available via a fully functional online learning portal iEvolve. TCS created its own social network, Knome, which encouraged the employees to connect with their colleagues from other countries to share ideas, socialize, and learn. The case also highlights some of the awards TCS received for its employee engagement initiatives in 2020. The company secured 18 Stevies at the 2020 Great Employers Awards, was recognized as a Global Top Employer for the fifth consecutive year by the Top Employers Institute, and was also honored as one of the ‘Fortune Best Big Companies to Work For’. The case ends with how TCS focused on improving employee engagement amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its intention to continue growing as an ‘empathetic’ organization so that employees would cultivate a feeling of oneness even while being distant physically due to the remote work culture.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the benefits of employee engagement programs for both company and employees
• Learn about the drivers of employee happiness at work
• Learn about the antecedents and consequences of workplace happiness
• Become aware of the various measures of employee happiness at the workplace
• Know about the importance of engagement initiatives to create a work culture that focuses on learning and development, awards and recognition, and continuous feedback

Keywords

Work Culture; Trust and Motivation; Employee Benefits; Employee Engagement; Learning and Development; Performance and Rewards; Organizational Climate; Organizational Communication; Continuous Feedback