Employee Motivation And Retention: Lessons From Microsoft - An Essay On Strategies.

Importance of Employee Motivation and Retention Strategies

Question:

Discuss about the Employee Motivation and Retention.

Employee motivation and retention is one of the critical aspects of the human resource that must be considered for the effectiveness of workers. It entails putting in place strategies that are likely to improve the worker's desire and morale to work for the company. The strategies also help the employees to increase their desire and willingness to continue working for the company. Failure to consider the motivation and retention strategy makes the company lose the maximum productivity of the workers. Besides, it makes it difficult for organizations to retain the best skill and talent in the market. This is critical and helps the organizations to gain a competitive advantage over other players in the industry (Srivastava & Shailesh, 2008).

Currently, most companies are making efforts to adopt the best strategies that motivate and retain the employees. There are various approaches that have been used to motivate the employees as the way to yield the best out of the available labour. The strategies revolve around their remuneration to ensure that they are well compensated and improved communication system to reduce the misunderstandings that may arise from the communication discordance due to a poor method of communication. Besides, companies are employing other strategies such training and performance appraisal system. These approaches are essential in promoting the motivation of the employees and their retention to work for the organization for a longer period (Khanna, 2008).

It is vital for organizations to understand the value that comes out of the motivated workers. Some organizations fail when they view motivation strategies as the imposed unnecessary cost to the organization. Motivation strategies are not necessarily expensive, and thus, all organizations need to embrace it. In this case study, Microsoft Corporation had a good history of good relations with the employees, however, at one point the company introduced cost-cutting measures which made radical changes to the employee motivation and retention activities that had been in place for the previous years. The changes brought about many issues regarding the employee motivation. This necessitated a later human resource transformation to improve the employee motivation and retention.

Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) is a technology company that was formed in 1975 by William Gates and Paul Allen. The company has grown over time and is now multinational serving clients from in almost all countries of the world. During this year, the company developed the first programming language called Altair Basic which was an improvement of BASIC programming language.  The language got familiarity over time and later became a standard programming language used in almost all the computers on the planet. Later in 1977, Microsoft embarked on selling FORTRAN and 1978, it sold COBOL. In the same year, 1978, the company got a chance to develop a version of BASIC for the 8086 processor after the Intel Corporation came up with a new 16-bit microprocessor (Foley, 2008).

Strategies for Motivating and Retaining Employees

Microsoft got a significant breakthrough in the year 1980 when it got a contract with IBM to develop an operating system that IBM was about to launch to the market. Microsoft developed Q_DOS which was used in the IBM computers. The Q_DOS was later renamed to MS-DOS. This made Microsoft achieve a greater step and later specialized in the provision of the operating systems. Since then the organization has grown and released many other operating system products that serve the entire globe. It later produced the windows operating systems, providing a graphical interface for the users, which now has a substantial market share in the industry (Angelo & Ricky, 2009).

The growth in Microsoft reveals the strong organizational skills that the company has had through its CEO Bill Gates. The organization made a good team that delivered timely quality software products. Besides, Microsoft had an excellent organization culture that motivated the employees to deliver the best. These attributes have made the organization to stay on top of other players in the technology industry and has now remained to be the industry leader in producing the operating systems. These factors helped to get the best out of the employees through their increased performance. This, in turn, helped to improve the profitability and sustainability of the organization (Bhatnagar, 2007).

Microsoft has been known for a long period in the industry to be among the best companies that embrace the best employee motivation and retention strategies in the market. The company is known to have a strong organizational culture that attracts and retain the best talents in the market. This was among the key drivers of the success of Microsoft in the industry. Motivated employees are productive, and this directly translates to better quality and profit margins to the organization which in turn gives the company a greater competitive advantage (ACAS, 2010).

The employee motivation and retention culture continued until the late 1900s when the company stated experiencing key human resource issues that affected the company in many different ways. The experts argued that the issues happened at Microsoft were mostly attributed to the fact that the company had grown and achieved more and thus forgot about the organizational culture that has been guiding it. The company had initially been active in embracing its culture that advocated and focused on various important issues. These factors included the challenging working environment, the risk-taking culture and embracing the innovative culture. The organization’s ignorance of the important HR aspects in the system led to frustrations of the employees in many different ways (Berger, 2009).

Lessons from Microsoft Corporation

In the year 1999, Microsoft’s management decided to make a restructure in the HR practices. The company focused on bringing about changes in the HR with a vision of improving the profitability of the organization by removing some of the programs that the company believed that they should cut down the cost which will, in turn, increase the organization's profitability. Most of these programs had a negative impact on the employee motivation and thus hampered with their welfare. These factors had negative impacts on the workers whereby it reduced their motivation which in turn brought about more different issues in the organization (Gerhart, 2007).

Some employees of Microsoft experienced discrimination at the workplace. There are some African American employees were discriminated in various ways which even made them file a case in court. The case brought it out clearly that these workers were discriminated along different lines such as performance evaluation methods whereby they could not getter a higher rating during performance evaluation. They were also rejected to more top offices in the organization due to discrimination in promotions. Besides, there were many cases where the Blacks got unfair terminations of their jobs, unlike other employees. Additionally, they also felt discriminations in the compensation terms, and they argued that they were denied bonuses and other benefits that others got.

The discrimination case raised the eyebrows of the organization’s management, especially to the outside market. The management argued that the company policies advocates for a 100% non-tolerance of racial discrimination. Therefore, this shows that in as much as the company had the policies in place to eliminate the discrimination issues, it had not adhered to it. Therefore, this bought it out clearly that this HR issue happened just because the company was reluctant to enforce its policy. It already had the laws in place but did not enforce them. Besides, some other groups of people also complained about the description. For example, the contractual employees also complained about the discrimination in a company such as failure to receive training unlike other employees (Griffin, Neal & Parker, 2007).

Microsoft has a history of being tough and strict to its employees. Microsoft faced the issue of the tough leadership which was also too strict in everything that the workers did. They were encouraged to work hard and give their best in the company. The company had an organizational culture for perfection which has been helping to achieve more. However, for the aspect of rough leadership brings about employee related issues. When the employees were subjected to strictness, such as the strict timelines and perfection, it needed a better leadership. Rough management team brought about a lot of pressure to the workers and since they were forced to deliver under bad rough leadership.

Performance Evaluation and Discrimination Issues

The company lost direction in the aspect of taking risks. The company no longer accommodated employee mistakes and everybody was to avoid all kind of errors that might be committed in the workplace. The employees were forced to be accountable for their actions to negative issues in the company. Every worker was liable to their mistakes that might have been committed during working. They were expected to give explanations of errors that they happen at the work place during the process of undertaking the duty and in some cases even pay for them. Such an environment made the employees fear to do activities that might impact any form of negativity to the organization. Thus, the workers reduced their innovative culture due to the fear of the risks associated with trying out things. Therefore, this lowered the productivity of the workers in the company (Wood & Menezes, 2011).

Microsoft started as a small company and was doing well with the existing management structure. This was because the management system was able to accommodate its small business. As time went by, the organization started expanding to reach various nations around the globe. The aspect of growth necessitated the entrance of new people into the management team. The new people included the managers that have been appointed d top fill the gaps that exist in the organizations. Since the company was still the market leader through it perfection culture, it gave little regard to the implications or the impact of its expansion (Gerhart, 2007).

Failure to review the management structure led to increased bureaucracy in the management system of the company and this had a negative impact on the organization’s performance. This made it difficult for the junior employees to be heard and most often they were disregarded. Besides, making a small change in the operations required approval level which discouraged most of the employees in airing their grievances. Managing the grown population of diverse characteristics made it necessary for the management to make it efficient reduce bureaucracy in the systems (Cosack, Guthridge & Lawson, 2010).

Microsoft led the technological market for an extended period. Through its perfection culture, the company was able to produce the quality and timely products that satisfied their customers. The culture gave the company a bigger competitive advantage over other industry players (Cook, 2007). When the company remained at the top, it became reluctant and believed that everything was done right there. Thus, the lack of competition affected the performance and management of the Microsoft which in turn brought about the human resource issues (Chakraborty & Gupta, 2010).

Leadership and Employee Productivity

When Brummel assumed office, she made reforms in the communication system of Microsoft. She introduced a system that encouraged and facilitated a smooth communication system in the organization both up and down vertical communication and also the horizontal communication. She introduced various programs such as the ‘listening tour,' where she moved from one town to the other to get have the opinions and voices of the workers especially the junior staff. The improved communication system made it easy for the organization’s management to hear the grievances of the employees and thus make efforts to sort them out.

Also, the improved communication system gave the management an opportunity to have the opinions and the ideas that the company can embrace for its betterment. Additionally, a good communication system helps to improve the employee motivation (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2008). Workers get a sense of belonging to the organization when their views are heard and acted upon. Thus, this is one of the aspects that motivated the employees to make them more productive, which in turn increases the profitability of the organization (Cullinan,  Bline,  Farrar & Lowe, 2008).

For a long time since its establishment, Microsoft has had a ‘forced curve system’ which entailed ranking the employees and awarding those on top only. The ‘forced curve system' had issues related to bias. It was subject to biases and thus, many employees felt the unfairness in the system which reduced their motivation to work for the organization. The approach denied the workers an opportunity for equal access and their rights to get the incentives or appraisals. The discrimination that exists in the method is also one of the factors that made the African American employees go to court to sue the company. Naturally, all the human beings feel good and motivated when their efforts are recognized.

Brummel introduced reforms in the appraisal system from the forced ranking system to the commitment performance. The new approach eliminated the chances of bias in the appraisal system. The system does not restrict the number of people who have the opportunity to be rewarded and makes everyone a possible candidate for the reward (Incomes Data Services, 2008). Thus, it increases the equality in the systems, and some workers do not feel discriminated by the system. Therefore, the reform of the appraisal system played a critical role in ensuring that all the employees are motivated and stay willing to continue working for the organization (SUFF, 2010).

Microsoft made radical changes in the employee benefits as a way to curb its related issues. Some of these changes in the benefits include the inclusion in food availability, transport, child care, health benefits and other essential discounts. These benefits played a critical role in impressing the employees to get their commitment and motivation once again. The benefits made most of the employees to find working at Microsoft to be one of the best experiences and thus felt comfortable to continue working at the place (Chakraborty, 2010). Workers always feel to belong to the place and part of the organization when they receive the benefits from the company. Thus, employee benefits re critical for every business organization that seeks success.

The initial state did not sufficiently consider the motivating the employees through a better motivation plan, and thus, the new approach was likely to impact positively to the motivation of the workers. It also gave Microsoft an opportunity to offer competitive salaries and benefits like other organizations. The employee benefits are one of the major employee motivation factors (Janas, 2009). An employee who receives sufficient remuneration and benefits are comfortable and have a peace of mind they are much productive. Therefore, the employee benefits reformations played a critical role in motivating and retaining the employees.

Microsoft introduced a new setup of the workplace as a way to make the workers feel comfortable within the working environment. The approach was creative and was one of the better ways to address the human resource issues that the organization was facing. The new creative workplace encouraged the more communication among the workers. It made the employees work from close positions which helped them to build a team which is productive to the company. This method encourages the unity and corporation of the team (Taylor, 2008). Besides, it promotes a comfortable working environment, thus increases the productivity of the workers.

The introduction of the creative office setups was initially seen irrelevant and a waste of resources, however, this was not the case. The workplace environment encouraged the employees to work together and made all of them feel valuable to the organization. This was a big step towards achieving the employee motivation and retention. Besides, the new setup made the employees of Microsoft learn how to trust each other, and increase their bonding at the workplace. Thus, the new workplace designed played an important role in motivating and retaining the employees.

In as much as Microsoft is performing well towards achieving a better human resource system, there are various aspects the company should continue to focus upon as a way to motivate and retain the employees further. Firstly, there is need to adopt training and development. Employee training is one of the critical aspects that help the employees to feel comfortable and motivated to work for the organization. Workers always want growth of their knowledge and skills. The employees view companies that provide training and development programs to be the better employers who encourage their career growth in their life. Thus, it is critical for Microsoft to come up with a program that makes all the employees receive the training and development in their various job position.

Secondly, it is also recommended that Microsoft integrates the best HR practices into its culture. The organizational culture is one of the most powerful aspects that help to implement the company's best practices effectively. Besides, it is also a right approach towards integrating and educating the people about the new reforms. Thus, capitalizing on the organizational culture is likely to yield more in the implementation of the changes. In its culture, Microsoft should discourage the toughness and harshness of the junior staff towards the senior ones in the company. This will relieve the workers from stress and make them more productive due to comfortable working terms. Therefore, the integration of the best HR practices into the organizational culture will be the best approach towards solving issues in the HR system of Microsoft.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is clear that employee motivation and retention is one of the critical aspects the human resource of every company must embrace. Motivated employees are more productive than those who are not. Thus, this directly translates to the increased profitability of the company, which in turn gives the company a greater competitive advantage over others in the industry. There are various employee motivation and retention strategies that companies are embracing. These approaches revolve around communication, the employee remuneration, the workplace among others. It is recommended that companies also embrace training and development of the course. The best approach to implement these HR practices that encourage employee motivation and retention is through integration into the corporate culture.

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