Microsoft India's HR Policies

Background

In 2008, Microsoft India Corporation Pvt. Ltd (Microsoft India), the Indian subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation was
ranked as no. 1 in the list of the best companies to work for in India. Surveyed jointly by Business Today and TNS Global. It
was also believed to be one of the most sought after companies for information technology professionals in India. Right from its
beginning in 1975, Microsoft had been an innovator in computer software and related services. Its product portfolio included the
Window series of operating system, software for clients, the very famous MS Office, games and software for mobile phones etc.
It started its Indian operations in the year 1990, setting up Microsoft India in New Delhi. Later, it expanded its footprint in India
by bringing all its main units of business into the country.

HR Approach

For more than a decade, hiring of IT workforce has been a challenge for almost all companies that have set their hub in India.
They came with the intention of taking advantage of low-cost, technically competent labour present here, compared to the
European and the US markets. As a result, there arose a huge demand for skilled labour in this sector and hence, many
companies had to develop a strategic HR approach to retain and manage talent. Microsoft India had very friendly HR policies
and practices all across in locations. Excellent in execution of policies was to be one of the main pillars on which the foundation
and growth of HR relied upon.

HR Policies: Recruitment, Selection and Induction

According to their recruitment and selection policy they recruited freshers and experienced professionals from campuses. Their
selection included a written test and couple of rounds of personal interview. They used to visit high -ranked educational
institutions such as IITs and it was one of the most sought after brands for the brightest professionally qualified students of
India. For experienced professionals, they scouted for candidates and conducted at least a minimum of four rounds of
interviews—which included technical and HR interview too. They focused on those candidates that had sound computer science
basics, sharp applications in creating superior-quality software and those that had the ability to understand technology. They also
conducted special recruitment drives for women. For induction, they had a formalized structure and a ‘buddy’ ‘assigned’ to each
new recruit to help them to apt to the company's culture.

Training and Development

They had a very robust training policy titled ‘Leap Engineer Acceleration Programme’ (LEAP), which imparted personal and
technical skills required to carry out the job. It also had a mentoring system that helped the employees in seeking guidance from
their mentors through an interactive learning process. They also conducted tons of technical and management training
programmes, and also encouraged job rotation. The company also identified young and bright professionals with strong
leadership potentials and prepared them for various leadership roles ahead. Their employee development measures helped to
retain employees by providing employees for growth.

Career Management

They provided for both lateral and vertical growth for all its employees. Their career management policy permitted employees to
move between various business units according to their area of interest. They were also exposed to other business units by way
of mentoring from senior professionals of Microsoft worldwide. As indicated earlier their policy on women's empowerment
organized ‘The Microsoft One India Women's Conference’, which was held annually for all women employees. It provided them
a platform to share their experiences in overcoming hurdles in their career growth path and in establishing work–life balance.

Flexible Work Timings

They had a flexible work timings policy for its employees. They worked according to their convenience. Hence, they succeeded
in infusing a sense of discipline in its employees. This also served as a retention scheme for employees.

Compensation and Benefits

Their packages were at par with or higher than the industry standard. Their compensation policy included plenty of benefit
programmes, which were evaluated twice a year too. Their benefit programmes included: professional counselling and support
services for employees and family members, crèche reimbursements for women employees, assistance programmes in case of
emergency and tuition assistance programmes which included financial assistance to meet tuition expenses.

Performance Management

They had a very candid policy for evaluating performance of employees. They followed a transparent process, so as to enable
employees to identify their performance levels and realize exactly what it takes to reach to the next level. They identified high
performers and offered them monetary as well as non-monetary rewards, ACE awards (Architects of Excellence) were given to
those that contributed to customer satisfaction. Every quarter, a group of high performers were invited to share their experiences
with a larger audience.
Work–life Balance ‘Bring Your Child to Work’ was one of their policies on work–life balance and this was done to improve
work–life balance among its employees. This programme was a family-friendly HR policy—where more than 500 children
across various locations participated in the programme.

Employee Retention Initiatives

Since they had a high level of career growth, they did not face a high level of attrition. Their policy on reward and recognition
was also robust and thereby they strived to create an enjoyable workplace along with satisfying compensation packages. The
policy also had an ‘Employee Value Proposition’ (EVP) that articulated what the company offered to its employees. Some of the
needs were: enjoying each day, working in an energizing environment, employee-friendly benefits, recognizing great work,
building career for life etc. They also launched a programme called ‘You and Microsoft, Living the Experience Together’. This
programme needed employees to work on cutting edge technologies, work with teams from the USA in producing new products.
It also provided a fun workplace with recreational facilities such as X-Box, video gaming and other relaxation activities.

HR Metrics @ Microsoft India

Metrics were developed to define and track effectiveness of the HR function at Microsoft India. They tracked performance of
HR practices in order to assess the return on investment (ROI) from various HR initiatives and then compared them against the
investment made.

The two important metrics they devised were the ‘Succession Planning Indicator’ (SPI) and ‘Succession Planning Usage’ (SPU).
SPI indicated employees who were ready to take lead roles and those who were one step away from taking lead roles. SPU
indicated the percentage of leadership position filled with those of the list of succession plans. The first was aimed at measuring
the organizational preparedness to run the business without interruptions and the second was to measure the organization's
efficacy in utilizing such plans while filling up the gaps in the lead positions.\\At Microsoft, they measured all critical people
metrics. They can be categorized as:

Organization: Size of the organization, the number of positions that are vacant, line HR and function ratios.

Organizational Health: Workgroup Health Index, Microsoft Pulse Index, Microsoft Culture Index.

Staffing: Hiring statistics—types of hires, source and channel-wise hiring, internally closed positions, the amount of expenditure
spent on hiring, lead time, percentage of hiring plan, offer/acceptance rates, reasons for offer decline.

Talent Management: Quarterly and annually tracking systems, reasons for attrition, percentage of retention of high positions
and promotions and usage.

Diversity: Ratio of women hired vis-à-vis set targets, percentage of women talent losses, reasons for attrition, percentage of
women in leadership succession pipeline, percentage of managers and employees completing the Microsoft diversity training
programmes, percentage of other hiring—differently abled employees.

Manager Capability: Span of control, organizational depth, percentage of managers to non-managers.

Learning and Development: Field Readiness Index, number of employees trained on development programmes, number of
managers trained through management excellence framework.

Leadership Development: Percentage of leadership hires, percentage of leadership attrition, succession-planning index.

Rewards: Percentage of annual budget used on rewards and recognition programmes.

Compensation: They also run market surveys to ensure competitive positioning on compensation.

Source: Adapted from Shankar and Ramalingam (2010).

Questions

1. Identify and make a list of all policies that Microsoft put in place.

2. What is the EVP (employer value proposition) of the company? How do you think the HR policies have helped Microsoft
India to feature in the list of ‘Best Companies to Work for in India’?

Source:

Shankar, Besta and Ramalingam, M. 2010. ‘Microsoft India's HR Practices’, ICMR.