Resident Evil

"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'?

"Microsoft's Stack Ranking review process predetermines the number of good, bad and mediocre reviews the company gives to its employees.

 

Microsoft uses a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 being the best and dictates that 20% of employees get a 1, 20% get a 2, 40% get a 3, 13% get a 4, and 7% get a 5. Those people probably get fired, explained anonymous Microsoft blogger Mini-Microsoft in one of his many blog posts about it.

 

This turns teammates into competitors. No matter how well a team does, most of them will get a mediocre review and a few will be scapegoats. It also means the best people at the company don't want to work together because only one person can be the top ranked employee in his or her group.

 

Patrizio's source, an unnamed Microsoft employee, also shared these details:

• Although Steve Ballmer is credited as the architect of the review process, when top HR manager, Lisa Brummel, took over in 2005, she promised to fix it. Instead she's instituted a series of tweaks that sometimes made it worse. This made Brummel " perhaps the most universally hated exec in the place," the employee said.
•  Employees who are in the lower rankings (3,4, and 5) effectively can't transfer to other departments within the company, the employee said. This is unfair because they might be struggling in one group, but would be able to flourish in another group. (Heck, they might not even be struggling, but someone has to get a 3, 4, or 5.)
•  Groups are also ranked against each other. Managers then have to fight amongst themselves to get resources for them.
•  There are two review seasons, meaning this process -- and the stress of it -- goes on almost all year long. It also means people are working with very short term goals in mind."

(Source: Meet 'The Most Universally Hated Exec' At Microsoft: Lisa Brummel By Julie Bort) 

Micro - Soft Response

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, even before Ayres could finish her interview. It is also allged that the company paid over one million sterling pounds to silence Ayres. Such a behaviour is least expected from a company like Microsoft.

By engaging women on equal terms, organizations and societies shall do no favour. Such efforts shall bring back to them growth and sustainability. The World Development Report 2012 (Gender Equality & Development) says that – ‘Gender equality is all about smart economics, as it can have a huge impact on productivity and economic efficiency…For an economy to be functioning at its potential women’s skills and talent should be engaged in activities that make best use of those abilities.”

Dark Ditch or Smart Pitch

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 organizations such environments can prevail? Voluntary involvement is at the heart of engagement.
But then, every company has a choice whether to be the Microsoft, Google, Apple of the world or to be a back-office Sweatshop. So choose your way but if you choose the latter then for god's sake stop chanting innovation just because you heard that from somewhere else.

What an Idea!

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 when some companies in US are attracting new employees by encouraging them to become entrepreneurs and also proposing to fund their projects in future, innovation-involvement may be a good way to engage with the employees.

The catch is however that if culture of innovation does not prevail in a company, such engagement is next to impossible.