Somewhere in a Chennai hostel tonight, a final year student is telling a junior that TCS makes you wear a tie every day and Infosys lets you come in shorts. Both halves are wrong. The campus version of an IT dress code is a game of telephone played across batches, and it rarely survives contact with an actual security badge.
The firms have mostly written their rules down. Reading them beats repeating the corridor version.
Infosys: the code died in 2015
For years, Infosys ran like most Indian IT companies, formals through the week and a small loosening on the last day. As Business Today put it at the time, Infosys, like most other IT companies, allowed casuals only on Fridays.
That ended in June 2015. Employees could wear business casuals on all working days, starting that Monday. The Friday exception became the everyday rule.
It was not a fashion decision. It was read as a retention move under then chief executive Vishal Sikka, one of a series of steps to connect with employees and slow attrition. The dress code was a lever for how it felt to work there, which is why it moved.
TCS: the tightening after the pandemic
TCS went the other way, and later. When it brought people back to office in 2023, it reasserted a dress code alongside the return. Through the standard week, Monday to Thursday, staff were asked for business or office attire, with smart casuals allowed on Fridays.
A small honesty note: the reports differ on the exact Monday to Thursday label. PeopleMatters calls it business casual; HRKatha reports formal business attire. Read it as somewhere in that band and dress to the stricter end if you are new. For seminars, summits and client meetings, both agree: full business formals.
The stated reason is worth sitting with, because it is the reason behind almost every corporate dress code.
A dress code, TCS said, "makes a favourable impression on global stakeholders."
TCS chief human resources officer, on the 2023 return to office
Wipro and the rest: documented versus assumed
Here is where honesty matters more than a confident answer. Wipro's current dress code is not publicly documented in a way we can point you to and stand behind. So we will not invent one.
The same caution covers the long tail of mid size firms and GCCs. Policies vary by client, by floor, and by manager. The safe move on day one is to read the room rather than the rumour.
| Firm | Everyday | Friday | Facing clients | Source year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infosys | Business casuals | Business casuals | Dress up | 2015 |
| TCS | Business or office attire (label varies) | Smart casuals | Full business formals | 2023 |
| Wipro | Not publicly documented | Not publicly documented | Assumed, not verifiable | not available |
The one rule everyone agrees on
Strip away the firm by firm detail and a single rule is left standing: the day you meet a client, you dress up. Infosys loosened the everyday and kept the client day sacred. TCS wrote the client day into the policy in black and white. No firm, anywhere, tells you to dress down for the people paying the bill.
That is the rule to carry between jobs, because it survives every policy change. Your everyday dress will drift with the company and the decade. The client day will not.
Your first month's wardrobe
Dress one notch above whatever you expect in your first week, then settle once you have watched a few floors. The cost of overdressing on day one is nothing; the cost of underdressing in front of a client in week three is a worse first impression than you can afford as a new joiner.
A small set covers it. Two or three collared shirts, a pair of neutral trousers, closed leather shoes, and one layer you can add when a client walks in. That carries the everyday and steps up for the day that counts.