Human Resource Management at Microsoft
Microsoft is one of the wealthiest and most successful companies in the world. Even more important, from a human resource perspective, is the fact that Microsoft is an employee-driven organization. While other organizations base their success on better manufacturing techniques, or better technology, Microsoft’s success is based on the effectiveness of their employees. Essentially, Microsoft value their staff and realize the importance of their staff. This focus on employees may, in the future, expand to all organizations. Microsoft then, is worth studying as an example of best practice in human resource management.
This study will focus on Microsoft’s employee management methods including how they recruit and how they retain their staff. By looking at how Microsoft operate, there is opportunity for other organizations to consider how they manage their employees and to consider whether their staff are also valued.
Firstly, the study will present information on the human resource practices at Microsoft. Secondly, the study will analyse these practices with a view to showing why they are effective.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AT MICROSOFT
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Flashback
Used to being the unchallenged leader during the early days of information technology, Microsoft never had it as easy since the advent of the internet. No matter the hot new internet technology, Microsoft was forever caught napping. It was never the innovator and forever a laggard in terms of success. Google trounced it at search and online advertising, Yahoo at instant messaging and consumer mail, Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad were far better at blogging software, it never even appeared on the battle ground of social networking with MySpace and Facebook ruling the roost.
But there were certain markets, especially corporate markets, in which Microsoft continued at have a strangle-hold, which kept its cash registers clinking, and at a frantic pace at that. These were the PC OS market with its Windows series, MS Office for Office suites, and its prize cash cows - MS Exchange and MS Sharepoint for enterprise messaging and collaboration.
Now, the above mentioned software are essential for every enterprise, and 5 to 10 years back, Microsoft did undoubtedly offer the most robust solutions available. In those days, since every body was eyeing the juicy big business enterprise segment, with their thousands of users implementations and IT budgets bursting at the seams, it was for that audience these software were developed. So although Exchange and Sharepoint required dedicated servers, complicated implementations and dedicated IT to man and maintain the system, nobody really minded, because these mega enterprises had the money and staff to spare.
The Present
Microsoft Access in Today's Business
I have designed databases and custom scripts in Microsoft Access to carry-out a wide-range of different functions to meet business requirements from small mom and pop companies to large international corporations. The applications that I have designed throughout my career involved everything from pulling specific data from world-wide ERP systems to enable users to perform targeted analysis to creating an all-in-one business solution that integrated the entire Microsoft Office Suite and could perform functions that would typically hours to perform in seconds with the simple click of a button.
Microsoft Access is a very cost-effective tool that integrates perfectly with the most popular office software in the world (Microsoft Office). Programs can be integrated effectively and flawlessly with such applications as Excel for charts, pivot tables and graphs, Word for mail merges and labels, Outlook for automated e-mails, PowerPoint for automated presentations etc.