People Engagement

" Over the last few years, Microsoft has gained a reputation as a rough place to work.Ex-employees have publicly complained that the company is political and bureaucratic.   Now a tell-all book published earlier this year depicts Microsoft as downright soul-crushing. "Stack Rank This! Memoirs of a Microsoft Couple" was written by two married, ex-employees who left the company around 2008 and felt compelled to warn others about the Microsoft culture. They identify themselves only as Jason and Melissa. While it's true that their stories are just the thoughts of two ex-employees, many of their complaints are still lobbed at Microsoft via employee reviews on Glassdoor and in our research when talking to former employees. We've read the book and skimmed out the most outrageous stories ." (Source: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book by Julie Bort ) SO WHAT IS THIS 'STACK RANKING'? " Mi...

According to a World Bank report, close to 4 million poor women go “missing” in developing nations every year – about two-fifths are never born, one-fifth goes missing in infancy and childhood, and remaining two-fifths do so between ages 15 and 59. What a pity! After thousands of years of human civilization, we could not make our planet a better place to live-in for women. Globally women represent more than 40 percent of workforce. Despite this most organizations have this typical glass-ceiling which results in them getting discriminated which is done covertly, most of the times. A very recent newspaper report alleges Microsoft of unfairly overlooking a female employee for the role of managing director in a firm. Natalie Ayres who worked at Microsoft for 15 years was seen as an outstanding candidate to become GM of its “Small Medium Enterprise & Partner group”, succeeding Alistair Baker. But the role was allegedly handed over to Gordon Frazer, a GM at Microsoft South Africa, e...

Fear erodes innovation and creativity. Forced choices are only good for getting people to work, not for expecting them to think radically. And without radical thoughts and dissensions without fear, innovation is a distant dream. An environment that is tempered with fear always stops people for expressing and even if they know that their organization is going the wrong way, they simply keep quiet because they are unsure of the consequences. In an effort to stop their 'boss' falling in a ditch, they may be hurried into the same ditch for speaking their mind. How can one expect people to think creatively in such choked-up environments. In Microsoft corporation two employees actually wrote memo to Bill Gates telling him that he was wrong on going-on with the strategy of set-top boxes and satellite TV and that the company should instead invest in Internet, which is going to be the next big thing. Bill Gates later called for a meeting and revised the entire strategy. In how many or...

Microsoft has launched an internal drive, called Garage , asking its staff to come out with unique ideas that could make life of women easier and simpler.   Employees have been encouraged under this initiative to develop mobile apps exclusively for women. Teams, each comprising 2-3 employees, comes out with ideas that could be converted later into solutions – both standalone and those that could be intertwined into the enterprise applications. Shopping App, Immunization Tracker (that helps smart mothers keep track of their kid’s vaccination schedule) are some of the new apps on the horizon. Engagement of employee through formation of ideation and innovation drives in the organization is one of the best forms of engagement. The sense of fulfillment and of contributing much more then one’s own work in a creative way has far-reaching consequences, both for the employee and the organization. Google developed many of its classic products, like Google News, in the same way. At a time...