microsoft corporation on talent (a)

7/30/2019 Microsoft corporation on Talent (A)

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Strategic Human Resource Management

Microsoft: Competing on Talent (A)


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Table of Contents

VISION ......................................................................................................................................... 2

CHALLENGES ................................................................................................................................ 2STRATEGIES/ STRATEGIC ACTIONS ................................................................................................ 2

PROBLEMS ................................................................................................................................... 3

OBSERVATIONS/SUGGESTIONS .................................................................................................... 3

Microsoft: Competing on Talent (A)


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VISION

Creating a world with a computer on every desk and in every home running on Microsoftsoftware

Version-2: to empower people to do anything they want, any place they want, and on anydevice

CHALLENGES

Scarcity of talent Retention of talent/attrition of talent Protection of company human resource policies and practices.

STRATEGIES

To change or adept some of the human resource practices that would be useful to retain socalled the best team of software professionals the world has ever seen.

Stringent recruitment process. Preference for hiring extremely intelligent, not necessarilyexperienced. Involvement of as appropriate interviewer. Selections of candidates need to

be ensured for going to be Microsoft people, not just good people for specific jobs.

n minus 1 concept during recruitment i.e. hiring fewer employees than actually required. No status symbols. Continuous restructuring the organization into small units of 30 to 200 people and further

dividing into work groups with responsibilities for a product, project, or program.

Conserved cash for growth i.e. equities were given to employees in lieu of high salaries. Semi-annual performance reviews tied to pay increase, stock options grant and bonus. Disease model ofmanagement for learning from mistakes. Importance on meeting superior candidates (even at entry level, college kids) with topmost

managers even Gates itself to convince them to sign on.

Segmentation of high potential list of employees into three waves.

STRATEGIC ACTIONS

Announcement of a package of changes that offered lucrative/sweetened salaries, allowedmore frequent promotions, and softened some of the pressures.

Principle of identifying a clear reason for recruiting a person. Initiatives for development through personal mentoring. Allocating scarce talent by moving key people from one project to another. Providing more comfortable & familiar work environment for morale and mental health. Review of objectives every month to avoid big deviations from the agreed goals. Develop leaders of clearing the obstacles, making decisions quickly and defining clear goals. Developed employee-survey questions to correlate directly to a persons intent to stay at

Microsoft.

Introduction of Organizational Health Index (OHI) as a part of annual employee survey.


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Develop an approach of key people review for career planning, early identification and jobslotting program.

PROBLEMS

Heavy work load. Lot of managers lack in necessary skills to manage people. Lack of sufficient capable

managers and leaders. Most of them were brilliant technical people but not necessarily

great managers.

Increasing level of employees (crossed 20,000) was the grave concern for diluting the valueand sprit.

Big retention problem in 1997 with a record of 7.6% attrition rate. Higher attrition rate (closer to average industry rate) among the employees having

experience of seven or more.

Stress as a part of Microsoft culture.OBSERVATIONS/SUGGESTIONS

Company has introduced different-different schemes/policies and approaches to increaseretention of employees, attracting best talent across the world, developing of leadership

ability among the employees. Company has tried to find out the causes of attrition/

discontent among the employees and intensions of employees. Company has developed

approaches for being aware of employees understanding about the companys goal, their

own goals and how much it is aligning with the companys goal, moreover company also

worked to minimise deviation of employees goal from the targeted goal. Company has

identified the potential employees within the company to allocate the right jobs for them.

Company has developed a process to show the competencies and thrown the questions at

employees to ponder on for its implementation and best outcome of solutions by employees

itself. It will enable employees to detect best solutions. Company has tried all possible best efforts to resort their problems but it is also important

that company should be adhered with it. Again emphasis should be given for development

and training programs so that employees can understand the companys actual need in

better way and act accordingly.

Company should focus on entertainment/fun/encouraging and motivational programs for itsemployees to alleviate tension.

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microsoft corporation on talent (a)

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