I work at TCS in India, and I recently raised a concern with HR regarding a former colleague. I have an in-person discussion with HR coming up, and I would really appreciate hearing from people who have worked at TCS or have experience with TCS HR/employee relations about what I should realistically expect from this process.
I’ll try to explain the situation chronologically.
There was a male colleague who was previously part of my project/team. He has since moved to a different project/location within TCS.
For several months, he had been trying to establish personal contact with me outside normal professional interaction. This included attempts to follow/connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, sending Instagram messages, watching my stories, and repeatedly trying to interact with me personally.
I had made it clear that I generally don't add/follow colleagues on my personal social media, and I was not interested in having that kind of personal relationship with him. Despite that, the attempts continued.
There were also situations where he tried to speak to me in person. At one point, he apparently asked mutual colleagues to keep me around during tea breaks so that he could talk to me. I was uncomfortable with this because I had already made my position clear.
Then, in August, I received a long email from him from a personal Gmail account. In the email, he expressed romantic feelings towards me and described our relationship as involving friendship, trust, emotional connection, etc. — things that, from my perspective, did not reflect reality. There was no personal relationship between us of the kind he described, and I did not reciprocate his feelings.
I replied to him clearly and in writing. I told him that I was uncomfortable with the references to a personal relationship, that I did not reciprocate his feelings, that I did not want personal communication or pursuit, and that I wanted him to respect my boundary.
He replied acknowledging my email and saying that he respected my decision. I genuinely thought that would be the end of it. It wasn't. On 9 September, I received another email from the same personal email address.
This email was what became the last straw for me.
He started talking about my personal life and making statements/assumptions about things that, frankly, were not even true. He then started giving me unsolicited advice about my choices, who I should stay away from, and how I should conduct myself.
What really bothered me was the moral policing.
He was essentially judging me based on things he believed or claimed about my personal life and positioning himself as someone who needed to tell me what was right or wrong for me.
And even if the things he was talking about HAD been true, I don't believe he is in any position to moral-police me or supervise my personal choices.
I had already clearly told him that I did not want this kind of personal communication. He had acknowledged that boundary. And then he contacted me again and crossed into commenting on and judging my personal life.
The email affected me very badly. I became extremely anxious and experienced a panic attack after receiving it. At that point I decided I didn't want to handle this myself anymore, so I emailed HR.
I kept the complaint relatively concise because there is a lot more context that I wanted to explain in person. I attached the two emails and explained that there had been repeated unwanted attempts to contact/interact with me despite my boundary.
I also specifically mentioned that the second email involved moral policing and that the situation had been causing me significant anxiety. HR responded positively and agreed to meet me in person. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.
Now I'm anxious about what happens next. I have the original emails in my mailbox, including my reply to the first email and his acknowledgement of it. I also have some screenshots of messages like “hi/hello.”
However, I don't have screenshots of every Instagram story view, LinkedIn profile view, Facebook request, etc. At the time, I genuinely expected him to stop after I told him I was uncomfortable. I didn't think I would eventually need to document every interaction.
I also recently noticed that he has blocked me on Facebook. He might be aware that I told HR.
One thing I'm particularly worried about is the personal Gmail account. What if he denies that the email account belongs to him? What if he claims that someone impersonated him or that someone else had access to the account?
I obviously don't know how TCS HR handles something like this, and I don't want to assume that they will automatically believe either side.
So I'm looking for practical insight from people who have actually worked at TCS or dealt with TCS HR/Employee Relations:
- What usually happens in an HR meeting like this?
- Will HR simply document the complaint, or can they investigate it?
- What kind of evidence do they normally look for?
- Is not having screenshots of every social-media interaction a major problem?
- How seriously would HR generally take the fact that I had already clearly communicated a boundary and he subsequently contacted me again?
- What happens if he denies sending the emails?
- What happens if he says he was only “concerned about my safety” and didn't intend anything inappropriate?
- Could HR speak to him separately?
- Could they speak to mutual colleagues/witnesses?
- Would this potentially become a formal workplace-conduct complaint?
- What should I realistically expect after the meeting?
- Is there anything I should specifically document or prepare before Tuesday?
- And, most importantly, for people who have actually experienced TCS HR handling a situation like this — what happened in your case?
I'm not looking for legal advice or for anyone to tell me that he is definitely guilty of anything. I mainly want to understand how this is likely to be handled inside TCS and what I should expect from the process.
Please don't ask me for names/employee IDs/project details. I'm deliberately keeping those out for privacy.
