Microsoft Company - Essay Example

MICROSOFT Organizational culture and structure is vital to the success or failure of a corporation. Where and how it distributes its resources is extremely important. Therefore a look at Microsoft—one of the world’s largest and most successful corporations—can reveal a lot of useful information on this subject. All businesses require excellent human resources programs if they wish to be profitable and successful (Mathis). Microsoft is no different. Microsoft has a number of useful programs in place including significant hiring, training, and tracking systems. These programs work fairly well. An important aspect and thread that runs through all of them, however, is management culture. How successful a human resources department is is often a reflection of the management culture towards employees. In this overview all of these things will be discussed. Microsoft uses a number of different methods to hire employees from both outside and inside the company. Advertisements are placed on websites and local media and some are displayed through a company intranet. One of the best things about their policy is that they try to hire from within the company. That means that employees are familiar with the operations and the culture. However, generally speaking, if a company becomes too reliant on this method of hiring they will find that they rarely have new blood or ideas. It is important not to over-prioritize internal hiring as it can lead to redundant thinking and tiredness. Microsoft’s training program is substantial. One of the best things about it is the 60-day buddy period which allows new employees to be supervised and gently acculturated to the company. However, 60 days is a long time to have a buddy and surely that “buddy’s” productivity will be reduced if he spends all his time with the new employee. If too many employees are hired at once, too many buddies will be spending all their time training. It’s important to keep this in mind. A thread that runs through all these aspects of Microsoft’s human resource management is a culture of respect for the employees. Management is a complex art. It involves a lot of angles relating to competition, performance and commitment. It also has a lot to do with competition. Microsoft is hardly the only software company in town and they must constantly be monitoring their competition to see how they are performing. Their prices and services change depending on the successes and failures of the competition. Training and recruitment practices change depending on how the competition is operating. One thing is for sure: the quality of a software companys products and services and its reputation reflect the type of management it has. Good managers have to be committed to the success of their company or hotel. They have to come to work with a sense of pride in the work they do. If they dont, then everything will simply fall apart. And the "troops," people like the employees on the frontlines simply wont be loyal and won’t care about Microsoft. This is an important point. In the case of Microsoft, managers know that the loyalty and morale of employees is a key to the success of the whole operation. If people felt they werent treated with a basic sense of respect, they would pass that on to the customers. That would be disastrous. In order to establish a sense of family and reward, employees need to be made to feel wanted. Managers have to be open and honest with employees about how things were going in a business sense. People need to be told when they were doing a good job. Another important to focus on—especially during training—is communication. Nothing is more important than keeping open the lines of communication, for when they are closed trouble begins. People have to know what others are doing and thinking or else many mistakes will be made and tempers will flare. If employees are left in the dark about significant decisions being taken by management than they feel they are not an important part of the organization. Also, this is when rumours begin and rumours are very bad for any organization. People use these kinds of opportunities to settle scores. Discipline begins to fall apart very quickly in these situation. Microsoft seems to understand this and is taking appropriate steps. One of Microsoft’s key values is to deliver excellent products in a timely way. Over the last few years they have reorganized themselves to do this. One of the key aspects of this reorganization is to shift the sales focus online (Microsoft Reorganization Press release). In the future software will be almost exclusively downloaded online rather than purchased at Best Buy or Future Shop, for example. They have also realized how significant the game and game console market is and have been venturing into this highly profitable territory as well, appointing new managers for these divisions and aggressively seeking a market share. This is all part of their values system: Microsoft wants to be on the leading edge of software design. Because the industry is so fast-paced you have to do everything possible to keep up. If you fall asleep at the switch, you wake up in a different era. Another important value issue for Microsoft is what it calls being a corporate citizen. This involves the theory of what is called Corporate Social Responsibility. It means that Microsoft will fund things like scholarships for students and will generally try to encourage community volunteering and so on for its employees (Microsoft Corporate Citizenship). Part of this comes out of the value of this kind of good work, but Microsoft is also aware that it is sometimes seen as a frightening monolithic organization and wants to be seen as more warmhearted. There is so much to say about Microsoft, one of the world’s most successful and important organizations. In many respects its organizational structure is cutting edge and this is seen in the profit it brings in. The question remains however whether in these dark economic times Microsoft can continue to stay on top. Only time will tell. Work consulted Mathis, Robert. Human Resources Management. New York: Thomson, 2004. Microsoft Corporate Citizenship http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/us/default.mspx Microsoft Reorganization Press release. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/apr01/04-05reorg.mspx Read More