Competing on Talent
To successfully compete for talent, Microsoft offers many options to potential employees. First, the company provides a relatively high salary in the labor market. In addition, employees receive options on the company’s shares, making them equity participants (Chebolu & Nair, 2021). Moreover, employees may spend most of their time outside of work, as management encourages work-life balance. In addition, Microsoft offers a quality development program that attracts people with high potential.
Recruitment Practices
In recent years, the number of stages of interviews at Microsoft has decreased markedly. Now the candidate is going through four or five interviews, including a meeting with an employee of the HR department, a direct supervisor, and a manager from an adjacent department. Communication with the manager helps better assess the prospects for a person’s career growth (McShane et al., 2021). The company does not use tests. The candidates’ competencies are assessed during the interview and immediately conclude the work experience of a potential employee. For top managers and interns, there are business cases that help determine how a person will behave in business.
Training and development of employees
The company tries to develop the abilities of its employees. At the same time, they understand that people have different inclinations and talents: some want to grow and become bosses, others want to improve in their current work (Schwind et al., 2019). HR specialists talk to each employee to understand how he sees his career at Microsoft. Based on these data, a personal development plan is drawn up. The company adheres to the concept of 70-20-10 (Chebolu & Nair, 2021). Here they believe that 70% of the success of an employee’s development depends on how far he goes out of his comfort zone at work, 20% on whether he can learn from others, 10% on theoretical training (Chebolu & Nair, 2021). Projects, mentors, and activities are selected for each employee following his development plan.
Microsoft’s internal learning is based on two dimensions – more accessible access to content and motivation. A simple but effective motivator is a badge with information about completing a business school course, posted on social networks and included in a resume. The world’s leading business schools partnered with Microsoft to create concise online MBA courses that allow employees to complete a theoretical approach in two months (Chebolu & Nair, 2021). Thus, employees can complete practical tasks, discuss issues with colleagues, get feedback from professors and immediately apply new skills in working with the customer.
References
Chebolu, R. M., & Nair, J. (2021). Microsoft: Building a Collaborative Work Culture to Foster Innovation. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20(4).
McShane, S., Tasa, K., & Steen, S. (2021). Canadian Organizational Behaviour (11th Ed). New York: McGraw Hill.
Schwind, H., Uggerslev, K., Wagar, T., & Fassina. N. (2019). Canadian Human Resource Management (12th Ed). New York: McGraw Hill.