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8/3/2019 At Microsoft

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HR Practices at Microsoft

Group 6 PGP-HRM HRSP Project

INTRODUCTION

Microsoft is considered by many to be an ideal place to work. The company has won

several awards for innovation, for their commitment to diversity, and for their flexible

work arrangements. It has always been a leader in the market with regard to itscompensation. With a total strength of about 80, 0004 employees across the globe, and

a total revenue exceeding $15 billion, it is one of the biggest and bestknown technology

companies in the world. The organization believes in providing the employees whatever

tools and technologies they need to achieve the best results possible; and the employees

are expected to create software and entertainment products that could sell millions of

copies worldwide.

The office campuses at most locations are considered the benchmark of technology

hubs, with fir trees, forested trails, snowcapped mountain vistas, basketball courts, and

even shuttle buses for employees to make use of.

Employees at Microsoft are recognized as the intellectual fuel and are provided with

various benefit plans and resources, which are designed to retain them.

The way the business and HR strategy have been intertwined at Microsoft is an example

of how the businesses that are run with common goals and vision make money for their

investors and employees. The amount of investment that Microsoft has done for its

employees and how well the HR Managers have been able to align the work culture to

the business strategy is clear from the results the company has posted year after year.

From being a geeks playhouse in 1980s to being a company that is a household name

everywhere in the civilized world, Microsoft is a company which is admired and envied

by even its most ardent rivals.

As an organization, Microsoft offers a lot of flexibility to employees the flexible work

arrangements and flexible benefit plans offered at Microsoft are often considered Best

Practices by many employers


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HR as a business partner

At Microsoft, what businesses seek of HR is to:

a) Understand the talent needs of the business

b) Help develop strategic plans regarding employees

c) Identify talent issues before they impact the business and

d) Help identify new business strategies.

HR growth model is based on one solid infrastructure to grow through flawless

execution into leading change and becoming strategic business drivers. Execution

excellence is important and lays the foundation for HR to grow relationship building isimportant but it needs to be supplemented by a real value to the business.

Microsoft India- HR Growth Model


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Recruitment and Selection

The company believes in recruiting extremely intelligent staff, favouring intelligence

over experience, as quoted by Bill Gates preference for hiring extremely intelligent, not

necessarily experienced.

Recruitment:

They sought the smartest and the most driven people from elite educationalfacilities.

They prefer in recruiting extremely intelligent staff preferring education morethan experience.

Microsoft has four main recruitment channels:

University/Campus Recruiting Direct Resume Submission On-staff Headhunting Outsourced Headhunting

Microsoft only occasionally uses outsourced headhunting, typically for very specialized

positions.

Selection:

Once recruitment process is done, a multi-step interview/ assessment programfollows which can be at least 3 step or sometimes up to 10 stem process.

These interviews were designed not to test knowledge, but to test thoughtprocesses, problem-solving abilities, and work habits.

Technical interviews are described as being focused mainly on problem-solving,with interviewers posing problem scenarios.

To test the composure of the candidate and also their creative problem-solvingskills, unexpected questions were also included.

The very last step is an interview by someone outside the hiring group, thisperson is independent and so unbiased in their opinion.


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DBSPT competency model for the HR value proposition

Competency Model (DBSPT)

1. Strategic Contribution Culture management Microsoft employees are great people who share the following values Integrity and honesty Willingness to take big challenges Self-critical, Questioning and committed to personal excellence and self-

improvement

Standard of business conduct to guide decision-making and businessactivities

Strategic decision making Microsofts HR department plays two roles in key decisions

o They take strong stands and bring intellectual rigor to business decisionmaking

o They play a reactive role relative to business decision-making. Askinsightful questions, encourage others to be strategic

Fast change

Business

Knowledge

HR

Delivery

Personal

Credibility

HR

Technology

Strategic

Contribution


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Microsoft has an organizational change management framework to drive anorganization-wide competency around planning, managing, and implementing

organizational change.

Utilizing a structured process and specific set of resources for addressing theimpact of change on people, Microsoft is able to realize faster change adoption,maintaining momentum and its commitments while mitigating the natural

resistance to change.

There are two types of change management:

Organizational change management focuses on the people side of change: howpeoples behaviors influence operational changes, and how changes impact the

intended audience

Operational change management focuses on the physical aspect of a change, forexample, infrastructure, software, hardware, or environmental changes.

Example of strategic contribution

At Microsoft, every employee is committed to helping expand access to quality

education worldwide. They recognize that although technology has helped drive

significant advances in education, there is still enormous potential for transformative

change. The following diagram and descriptive text provide a concise overview of the

Microsoft approach to strategic planning for education. The approach begins with a

common vision of delivering a 21st-century education and then focuses on the core

needs and concerns of all key stakeholders.


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2. Personal Credibility Achieving results Credible HR professionals have a reputation for meeting their commitments

for doing what they say and saying what theyll do for getting error-free

results

Effective Relationships Microsoft provides people with opportunities to grow, be creative and

acquire training for challenging assignments and advancement

It provides for its staff to achieve self-actualization and also exactly what itexpects, for them to be the very best they can be communication skills

Example of Personal Credibility

MY Microsoft: On May 18, 2006, Microsoft Corporation announced a plan named MY

MICROSOFT.

Introduced by Lisa Brummel who was the Senior Vice-President of HR. She was appointed by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft in 2006. Developing appropriate systems to enhance communication between the employees

and the HR department.

Made the companys HR polices transparent.


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Centralizing the information the employee should have about what they are gettingthere.

3. HR Delivery Staffing

People are what make Microsoft the unique, innovative and progressivecompany that it is. To ensure they invest in this critical asset, Human

Resources employees identify, hire, and grow the people and develop and

run the industry-leading compensation and benefits programs. Staffing

employees develop and execute recruitment strategies to find, attract, and

hire the best talent to the company.

Training and DevelopmentRole of HR at Microsoft:

Identification of potential skill shortages for proactive planning, hiring,and training to meet future needs

Develop and Maintain training and certification plans to achieveworkforce skill and knowledge goals.

Performance Management Performance goals pertaining to employees were measured against

specific measurable ones, the objectives shortened to SMART(Specific,

Measurable, Attainable, Result, Time-bound)

Formal review system ensures no unexpected deviations Also includes the process of employee evaluating themselves These self-evaluations are then sent to managers for their own evaluation The employee and manager then meet to discuss the review

4. HR MeasurementAt Microsoft, all critical people metrics are tracked to measure the effectiveness of

HR. They can be categorized as:

Organisation: Organisation size, open positions, line HR ratios Organisation Health: Workgroup Health Index, Microsoft Pulse Index, Microsoft

Culture Index


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Staffing: Hiring stats types of hires, channel wise hiring stats, positions closedinternally, hiring spends, lead time, % of hiring plan, net adds, offer acceptance

rates, reasons for offer decline

Talent Management: Good attrition, bad attrition, YOY and Qtr-on-Qtr tracking,reasons for bad attrition, % retention of high positions, % of promotions,

succession planning indicator, succession planning usage

Diversity: % of women (target vs. actual), % of women hired, % of women talentlosses, reasons for bad attrition, % of women in leadership succession slate, % of

Managers and employees completing MS Diversity training programs, % of other

diversity hiring (differently abled)

Manager Capability: Span of Control, Organisation Depth, % of Managers Learning & Development: Field Readiness Index, number of employees trained

on employee development programmes, number of managers trained through

management excellence framework (that provides for management development

through career events, continuous learning and building connections)

Leadership Development: % of leadership hires, % of leadership attrition,succession planning index (% of successors in stages of readiness for a

Leadership role)

Rewards: % of budget used on rewards

5. Legal Compliance Compliance with business standards, laws and regulatory requirements Accountability for bribery and anti-corruption, anti-money laundering laws

applicable

Taking appropriate actions that are ethical and in compliance with applicablelegal requirements

Creation, retention and disposal of business records and information assets as apart of the normal course of business compliance with Microsoft policies

Promotes and supports diverse workforce at all levels of company Microsoft promotes equal employment opportunity Allegations of harassments and unlawful discrimination addressed with high

priority

Business Knowledge


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Microsoft HR professionals understand the company they serve and the industry in

which they function.

Knowledge of the value chain: Microsoft HR professionals understand the firmsexternal customer, suppliers and competitors; and to see how to translate their

knowledge into internal financial and production requirements.

Knowledge of the firms value proposition: The HRs decide on what activities toconduct through which internal channels and which to outsource; harmonize in

deciding which business to emphasize

Labour knowledge: HR professionals track employee satisfaction, key needs ofemployees and maintaining ongoing two-way communications within the

workforce.

Example: The HR gain in depth business knowledge during mergers and acquisitions,

organization restructuring and participate in developing strategies and ensure thathuman resource dimensions are considered.

HR Technology

The Microsoft HR department regularly finds new applications of technology to improve

their efficiency and effectiveness.

Employee Loyalty and Satisfaction

Empowering employees is one of the new approaches being utilized by Microsoft Providing data opportunities to younger people for having elder employees to coach

them

Three aspects of task that affect job satisfaction are :o Job Complexityo Degree of physical straino Perceived value of the task

Microsoft manages this by providing high complexity that high achievers require

ensuring the perceived value of the task assigned.

Role Ambiguity is kept low because of the consistency in the culture

Rewards and Recognition

They recognize the importance of the people and reflect it in their rewards system Rewards for current achievements and also for those that are seen as valuable

future assets

Divide the skills of employees into areas : conceptual, technical and human Offers to advancement path, allowing those with technical skills to advance as

technical experts and people with conceptual skills advance as managers


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By having two reward systems, it effectively communicates that both sets of skillsare valued

Microsoft offers stock options to employees based on performance

Best practices of HR at Microsoft

Employee Retention program

Microsoft conducted a questionnaire survey to frame an Employee value proposition

Surveyed for 8 needs in Employee value proposition

o Working with technology everydayo Caring for every employeeo Working in an energizing environmento People friendly benefitso Building careers in lifeo Recognizing great worko Enjoying each dayo Making a difference globally

Launched You and Microsoft, Living the Experience together!

Flexible Working Hours

Introducing Flexible working hours,

o Enables employees work according to their convenienceo Sense of responsibility and discipline.o Helps in building rapporto 56% of flexible workers believe they work more productively away from the

office, and 48% say this is because they can fit their work around personal

commitments

o Three in ten are most productive when at home


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o Four in ten (40%) respondents think flexible working would be at least veryimportant to any decision they would make about changing job

o Therefore, whether it being flexible in regard to place or time of work, there arestrong indications that employers can improve the productivity of their

employees by allowing them to work flexibly

Women Empowerment Drive

o Special recruitment drives to raise the female to male ratio in the workforce.o One-India women's conference conducted annually.

MicrosoftCorporation is in the list of 100 best companies for working women for six

consecutive years till 2008.

Investing and budgeting

Microsoft provides an employee stock purchase program that allows employees to

purchase shares of Microsoft stock at a discount. Each quarter, employees can purchase

Microsoft stock at a 10 percent discount off the market price during a defined purchase

period. In addition to competitive pay, bonuses and stock awards to eligible employees

based on individual performance, benefits such as tuition assistance and encashment of

unused benefits can also help employees invest in their future.

A goodie-bag of benefits

Free beverages Awesome cafeterias Transportation :free air-conditioned bus and carpool service Time off: 15 paid vacation days, 10 paid sick-leave days and 12 paid India holidays. Relocation: If an employee has to move to begin his Microsoft career, he may be

eligible for help with everything from packing and moving stuff to temporary

housing.

Discounts on software and hardware: Enjoy substantial discounts on Microsoftproducts

And more: Enjoy flexible work hours, freedom to dress as employees choice (withinreason), a team morale budget (a longstanding Microsoft tradition), product

launch parties, and the annual Microsoft company meeting.


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Microsoft Intern Program

Under this program, Microsoft provides to the interns real responsibility, amazing

experiences and the opportunity to jumpstart their career.

Microsoft takes pride in treating its interns like real employees, having them joinproject groups and assigning tasks that could potentially impact national initiatives and

strategies. These groups fall into a number of categories, some outside of software and

hardware development like User Experience and Marketing. The perks don't stop with a

real-life work experience. Microsoft interns also receive paid travel to Microsoft

(including subsidies for bike purchase/rental!), health club memberships, and discounts

on software.

Interns get mentors and performance reviews. Microsoft offers full-time jobs to 85

percent of the interns, and more than 80 percent accept

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