The company also engages in recruiting at
university campuses across Canada.
"Every year, we hire close to 100 students from
13 different universities in Canada," says Kawley.
The company undertakes two university campus
hiring campaigns per year, in January and July. Once a
potential candidate is identifi ed, a series of different
interviews from HR, IT and management are
undertaken in order to discover if the candidate
would fi t into the TCS' philosophy and become a
successful team member.
"As an organization, we focus a lot (on) our
participatory culture. We encourage employees to
talk about different challenges, how to solve them
in a team environment. It's very important for us
to have the right kind of person whose culture fi ts
with TCS," he says.
Student candidates are evaluated on key points
such as time-management expertise, work-model
flexibility and future-leadership competency,
according to TCS.
"We speak to them about changes in technol-
ogy, changes in careers. We also tell them about
where they need to build their competencies
so they can get a job and become employable
immediately after their graduation," says Kawley.
And if a candidate isn't hired, the company offers
"personalized constructive feedback" from an HR
representative on how that person could improve
for the future, according to TCS.
The fi rst full day of a new employee's career is
spent on a deep dive into the organization's culture
and its history. Part of that culture includes an open-
door policy between management and staff, says
Kawley.
"What we achieve as an organization is purely
based on the collective effort from my entire team
of all employees; it's not a success of one person, it's
a success of the team."
TCS also offers a "Bring Your Buddy" program
that provides an "unlimited" cash incentive to
employees who refer workers to TCS, according
to Kawley, and about 20 per cent of new hires are
brought in this way.
TCS also runs an annual CodeVita program,
which is a coding competition that promotes
programming as a sport and includes a top prize of
$10,000. A Canadian team entered the contest a
few years ago and had the only woman in the entire
competition. It "was a proud moment," says Kawley.
TCS' recruitment process metrics are reviewed
weekly, allowing the company to keep a constant
eye on how it is managing — especially in light of
millennials entering the job market, he says.
"We are looking as an organization at how we can
change ourselves: For example, today's generation
is very communication-friendly
— they look at social media —
so how do we leverage social
media."
Even though technology
continues to change, the
company's focus on recruitment
remains the same, says Kawley.
"The only thing which has
changed is the kind of
people we require
based on technology
change."
"Phones and mobile
technology have
changed our world,
how we operate,"
he says. "So the
focus right now —
whether it's TCS
or others in the IT
industry — is on
social and mobile."
27
'We focus a lot on our participatory culture'
TCS < pg. 25
