while (my $record = <EMPLOYEES>) {
  chomp $record;
  my @person = split /\t/, $record;
  # now do something interesting with @person
}

##</code><code>##

my @cols = qw(name email office);
while (my $record = <EMPLOYEES>) {
  chomp $record;
  my %person;
  @person{@cols} = split /\t/, $record;
  # now do something interesting with %person
}

##</code><code>##

open (EMPLOYEES, 'employees.txt')
  or die "Can't open employees.txt: $!\n";