Citation and Biography

Works Cited

"Advantages & Disadvantages of Divisional Organizational Structure." Small Business. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-divisional-organizational-structure-611.html>.

"Bill Gates Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.biography.com/people/bill-gates-9307520?page=3>.

"Business Expansion through Training and DevelopmentAn Aldi Case Study." On-the-job Training. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/aldi/business-expansion-through-training-and-development/on-the-job-training.html>.

"Common Menu Bar Links." Job Description Components. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <https://www.jobsetc.gc.ca/pieces1.jsp?category_id=2807>.

"Corporate Culture." Investopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corporate-culture.asp>.

"Delegating Leadership Style." Delegating Leadership Style. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.money-zine.com/definitions/career-dictionary/delegating-leadership-style/>.

"Developing Skills in a Large Organisation through Training and DevelopmentA National Grid Case Study." Off-the-job Training. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/national-grid/developing-skills-in-a-large-organisation-through-training-and-development/off-the-job-training.html>.

Glenn, Clara Lippert. "Corporate Culture: A Foundation for Success." Trainingmag.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.trainingmag.com/content/corporate-culture-foundation-success>.

Hanft, Adam. "Microsoft's Massive Reorganization -- All Structure, No Culture." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 July 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-hanft/microsofts-massive-reorga_b_3619736.html>.

"Importance of Employee Training." - New and Experienced Workers. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://trainingtoday.blr.com/employee-training-topics/Importance-of-Employee-Training>.

"Lunch Lesson 14 - Recruitment." BBC News. BBC, 05 Feb. 2003. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/working_lunch/2990027.stm>.

"Make Employees Feel Valued." - PowerPoint. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/make-employees-feel-valued-HA001161946.aspx>.

Marksberry, Brittney. "Organizational Structure of Microsoft." Prezi.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://prezi.com/nyq_r5tcjjyz/organizational-structure-of-microsoft/>.

"Microsoft Business Culture." Microsoft Business Culture. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.eknowledge.org/microsoft/microsoft-business-culture.html>.

"Microsoft Careers: What We Can Offer You." Microsoft Careers: What We Can Offer You. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/in/whatwecanofferyou.aspx>.

"Microsoft Team Building Picnic: Pirate Power." Interplay Experience Design. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.interplayinc.com/who/success/microsoft-team-building-picnic-pirate-power>.

"Motivate Your Employees to Help You Succeed." Motivate Your Employees to Help You Succeed. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.microsoft.com/canada/smallbiz/themes/build-your-business/motivate-your-employees-to-help-you-succeed.mspx>.

"Software Development Engineer II - AMP - 859215 Job." Bellevue. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.microsoft-careers.com/job/Bellevue-Software-Development-Engineer-II-AMP-859215-Job-WA-98004/28911000/>.

"Titration Lab Discussion." - WriteWork. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2013. <http://www.writework.com/essay/titration-lab-discussion>.

"Top Five Ways to Motivate Employees." The Guardian. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/partner-zone-microsoft/five-ways-to-motivate-employees>.

Corporate Culture of Microsoft

What is corporate culture? 

The belief and behaviors that determine how a company'w employees and management carry out outside business transactions. In often times a company's culture will be reflected in its dress code, business hours, office setup, employee benefits, turnover, hiring decisions, treatment of customers and customer satisfaction

What is Microsoft's Corporate Culture? 

Microsoft has often been described by many employees as having a developer centric corporate culture where a lot time and money is spent each year on recruiting young university-trained software developer and keeping them in the company. As an example, while many software companies often place an entry-level software developer in a cubicle desk within a large office space but Microsoft assigns private or semiprivate closed office to every developer. In addition , Microsoft also uses its own latest product in an effort to test them in real life situations and ask off the wall question to get its employees on their feet. From time to time Microsoft organize puzzle hunts to keep their from feeling demotivated. In 2006, Microsoft employees excluding Bill Gates has give $2.5 billion dollars to non-profit organizations worldwide making Microsoft the worldwide top company in per-employee donations.

How can it be further developed?

From an article i dug up, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-hanft/microsofts-massive-reorga_b_3619736.html) Adam Hanft, a political columnist and CEO of Hanft Projects, criticized that Microsoft is all structure and no culture. He stated that "Based on the reorganization announcements of last week, that's the way Microsoft is trying to address their own mega version of the parental challenge. While Steve Ballmer has acted boldly from an organizational point of view, he's done nothing to address the fundamental crisis in his culture. A culture of warring factions, mistrust, and a void of shared values and common purpose." so from this article i can conclude that Microsoft needs to stop all the nonsense regarding warring factions, mistrust, a void of shared values and revert back to their former innovative self under the leadership of Bill Gates. From there Microsoft can improve on the oneness of the company by having more team strengthening not only in a single department but a combine team strengthening with all the department. That way, Microsoft can kill two birds with one stones by eliminate the warring factions problems and also train their employees to work together.

What great and not so great about the Microsoft corporate culture?

it is clear after what i had research that the benefit of Microsoft's corporate culture is that it decreases employee turn over but it will cause problems like warring factions, mistrust, and a void of shared values.

Is corporate culture vital to the success of a company?

Creating a corporate culture is important because that will have a significant impact on a company's overall success. It is an important aspect that many businesses overlook. By cultivating a professional atmosphere where your employees know what to expect and what is expected from them is crucial to employee retention and productivity as well as a company's success.

Microsoft world wide culture

One side does not fit all, Microsoft tailored each offices around the world to accommodate the local culture, economy and work styles of employees and management. For example, In the Microsoft office of Schiphol, Amsterdam it has no assigned seating, that means that employees come and go as they please. The office is defined by fluidity of movement and collaboration between employees and with customers with the the success of this approach it creates an optimal work environment for employees. Whereas in head office is more american culture and corporate style is rigid which stick corporate structure. 

The accommodation made by Microsoft to accommodate to local staff

Dubai

Dubai office 

In the Dubai office, the rest day is Friday instead of Sunday and they give flexible hours for prayers as Dubai is a Muslim country.

India

India office

In the India office, the canteen is specially modified for vegetarians and Microcosm also provide transportation to employees.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam office

In the Amsterdam office, it has no assigned seating, that means that employees come and go as they please.

 

      

Motivating your employee the Microsoft way

Types of motivation techniques
To maximize output and drive revenue, Microsoft needs to get their employees working as effectively as possible. To do this Microsoft must keep their employees motivated by using these 5 motivational techniques:

1.Giving attentions to employees- employees need to know that they are valued, understood and most importantly, listened to. if an employee has a concern or some other problem that may stop them from from working effectively, employees need to know that communication channels are open. Microsoft do this by taking time to converse with the employees to make them feel more comfortable with their jobs, more settled and better-motivated to work hard for the company. In addition Microsoft also help reinforce positive behavior so employers should always be looking for opportunities to provide positive feedback.

2. Reward strong performance- Microsoft rewards employees that perform well, This can be in term of extrinsic reward such as additional pay, benefits or opportunities for promotion through simple gratitude and recognition for an excellent job.

3. Involve employees in decision making- Microsoft involve employees in making processes will not only just motivate the employee, it will also identify their potential manager talent which could help to grow Microsoft in the process. As you can see Microsoft is trying to make employees feel that they can make suggestions and present new ideas which could potentially improve the way the organisation works.

4. Offering training and development- Employees want to feel that they are constantly developing in the workplace by learning new skills and gaining experience which will stand them in good stead in the future. As a result, Microsoft sends them to "off the job training" so that the employees will feel that they are that their development is supported by the company hence motivating them.

5. Define the employees's role- Microsoft provides a clearly defined job description and understand the role they are working in, this provides a context for everything and ensures the employees' feel a sense of purpose while at work.    

Would it motivate me?
By nature, i am a reward motivated person which means that i am only motivated if there is a reward in it for me therefore i will be highly motivated by Microsoft's motivation techniques which pays me more if i perform well on the job. However, giving me rewards is not the only way to motivated me, i will also be motivated by giving me attention and being recognize for what i had done well.

How does Microsoft get even more out from their employees?
According to Microsoft, the key to get you employees to perform to their fullest is to make them feel that they matter by doing the following:

1.Recognize the individual- In Microsoft, each staff member knows that he or she does make a different.

2.Be responsive- The feedback or suggestions from employees will never be simply be ignore.

3.Tap your top perfumers as teacher- Have employees share their expertise by training or mentoring other staff members.

4.Interacting with employees- Most Managers in Microsoft will constantly talk with their subordinates to let them know that they are not taken for granted.

5.Help employees to achieve their dreams and goals- Periodically people in leadership roles meet each of their subordinates to set yearly goals and accomplishments and keep a written record so that they can benchmark their progress.

Team based activity in Microsoft

In Microsoft, employee play a game called pirate power as a team based activity. The challenge is to create a them to distinguish this annual event from past ones while at the same time building on the success of past events. In this event employees took part in three different excises designed to draw out their inner pirate, each event is lead by pirates or also known as motivators. The result of this activity is interplay successfully engaged a diverse and highly intelligent group in a series of smart play activities that brought people together in common challenges that strengthened bonds between team members.

My personal thoughts on motivation in the work place 
In my own opinion i think that motivation is essential to the work place because motivation give the employees the drive to come to work to do their best. A workplace without motivated employees is equal to a ineffective and unproductive workplace therefore i think for the benefit of everyone if employees are constantly motivated by their bosses. I consider myself a reward motivated person because i work better if people offer me a bigger reward for every  job well done. Based on experiences, i feel that everyone can motivate themselves due to circumstances like due dates and motivational poster.  



  
  

Training is Fun with Microsoft

The importance of training
 Training your employees is crucial to the company's success regardless of how new and experience your employees are, they all require training both off and on the job. Training your employees are like providing supplement to your company, the more you provide those important vitamins to your company the faster your company will grow and expend. Training helps employees to know what they are doing, increase efficiency, give job satisfactions and to have a better start.

What is Microsoft doing that is different?
In general, training can be a very boring and painful process to go through. However at Microsoft, employees get the best on-the-job training in the world, while enjoying a casual, flexible work environment where you can choose everything from when you work to what you wear. if you not working hard you are playing hard with some of the smartest, most talented, most committed technology lovers in the world.

What training opportunities are there?
1.Participate in lots of stimulation with outstanding colleagues to thrive on pushing limits of what  technology can do.
2.Working with cutting technologies.
3.Lots of freedom
4.Get creative, share your crazy ideas and try something new as Microsoft is not afraid of failure.
5.Have lots of support form mentors
6.Work hours are flexible to set your hours to match your own natural rhythms of productivity and rejuvenation.

How does Microsoft conduct their training?
Microsoft usually focuses on "on the job training: as a software company this is important because "on the job training" is a training that takes place while employees are actually working that means that skills can be gained while trainees are carrying out jobs which proves useful especially in the manufacturing department part of Microsoft as it both benefits employees and business. By law, employees who work in high risk area must learn basic first aid which categorizes as "off the job training". As well as people who are in leadership roles are also sent to "off the job training" as it focuses on general skills and knowledge useful in work like leadership training, how to deal with people and how to be a better person.

Do Microsoft do any soft skills training?
Yes absolutely, soft skill is a set of skills that related to a person's personality, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness and optimism that characterize relationship with other people. Soft skills complement  hard skills, which are occupational requirement of a job such as computer skills which is important to Microsoft employees.

My thoughts on training opportunities in Microsoft?

What I admire	What I criticize
Giving freedom to employees is great way to encourage them to make innovations and maximize productivity.	I feel that by giving too much freedom will make the employee lazy as time goes by.
Having genius working together is a good idea as they can share their ideas to trainee and teach them.
Microsoft is not scared of failure or mistakes therefore their employees can do creative thing and their job are not threaten.

 




   
  

 

Job description (An analysis)

Does this advert reflect corporate culture?

Yes, this job advert does reflect the corporate culture of Microsoft, in the job advert it state that "MSN, which is part of our exciting organization AMP (Application Media Publishing),  is an innovative, high energy team in a collaborative open space environment focused on delivering excellent software in agile software development paradigm. “is an innovative, high energy team in a collaborative open space environment focused on delivering excellent software in agile software development paradigm. We move on internet time and ship frequently. We encourage our engineers to adopt shared responsibility for writing and maintaining testable, high performance, scalable, and maintainable code. We work smart and hard and have a great time doing it. Monthly morale events, weekly team lunches, Kinect competitions and regular Ping Pong matches are some examples of team’s fun activities. We are located in the heart of vibrant downtown Bellevue with access to numerous top-quality entertainment, shopping, and restaurant choices.”   From this statement we can tell that the corporate culture in the application media publishing department is being innovative, highly energetic collaborative, work on internet time, shares responsibility and work smart furthermore as far as i can tell from this advert, the cooperate culture also promotes team work as they have monthly morale events, weekly team lunches, Kinect competitions and regular Ping Pong matches.     

Is recruitment fair and would i work there? 

Based on statement on the job advert, by law Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer but in my opinion this is true in a sense that they do look in to everyone and pick the best as they also support diversity in the workplace however give the situation if there a guy and a disable guy with the same qualification they will obviously select the guy as they need to think of the extra cost of installing other facilities like rams to accommodate the disable guy. In short, they will only chose employee that can benefits the company with the lowest cost. 

Well if you ask me, i would not like to work at Microsoft solely because i am not interested with the it field , i am more of a business kind of guy and the other reason is that although i respect Bill Gates and all his work, i do not want to work for him, my aim is to be like him, rich and generous.     

Recruitment the Microsoft way

Recruitment

Bill Gates believes that the recruitment process is a very seriously because his company want the best people to work for him as a result the human resources team is crafted towards creating an environment where the best people want to work. To ensure that Microsoft get the best employees, the company works closely with schools and universities so that it will be easily to hear about the talent that are there in those schools and universities.

Selection method

Microsoft uses the talent Pipeline method to filter out the potential candidates. The employees are hired not just for their current skills but for their future potential.  Microsoft is one of UK’s most popular companies to work for, with a turnover of staff of just 5% but even though they try to keep hold on their staff, there is always a steady stream of demands for new people. Microsoft takes on around 20 new graduates per year. These are divided into two areas, the commercial side and the technical side with an approximately 1000 applicants in each sector.  

The process

Prior to presentation day potential candidates, application for positions are first made via website then these are screened and a shortlist is drawn up usually done by an outside agency. The next stage is where Microsoft meets the candidates; the potential candidates go through various sorts of psychometric testing to evaluate their aptitude and personality. The remaining candidates who passed the test is then invited back to meet with the senior executives at Microsoft which they are offered a permanent contract as a “graduate trainee’ and then the candidates are integrated into the workplace, provided they pass a three month probationary period.       

   

Microsoft's organization structure from the beginning to 2013

In the beginning

Like most businesses Microsoft started out with a flat organization structure and gradually expands to a tall organization structure because implementing and managing flat structures is challenging, narrow span of control, job complexity and greater coordination. At the beginning, Bill gates wanted to create a family work environment as Microsoft had only 3 original employees.

Figure 1

The original structure

As shown from Figure 1, the original structure of Microsoft was a tall organization structure. Bill Gates and Paul Allen sat on the top of the organization structure as co-founders. On the way down the structure Maria Wood served as a bookkeeper administrative assistant then down to Steve woods, Bob Wallace and Jim Lane as managers. On the lowest level are the programmers; Marc McDonald, Bob Greenburg, Bob O’ Rear, Gordon Letwin and Andrea Lewi. 

The new structure

 As of 2010 under Steve Ballmer, Microsoft has adopted the divisional organizational structure each division focuses on a specific line of goods and services with their every own research and development, Sales and Customer Service Staff.  

My opinion regarding the structure

I personally think that the current organization structure (Divisional structure) has its advantages and 

disadvantages such as

Advantages	Disadvantages
Division works well because it allows a team to focus on a single product.	Will allow office politics to fester
Having its own president or vice president makes it more likely the division will get the resource it needs from the company.	One division will sometime act to undermine the other division
Division focus allows it to build a common culture that will result in higher morale and a better knowledge of the division portfolio	Divisions can bring compartmentalization that can lead to incompatibilities
Having its product and services dispersed among different department.

However it might not the best solution, for example “Microsoft's business-software division developed the Social Connector in Microsoft Office Outlook 2010. They were unable to integrate Microsoft SharePoint and Windows Live until months after Social Connector could interface with MySpace and LinkedIn. Some experts suggested that Microsoft's divisional structure contributed to a situation where its own products were incompatible across internal business units.”(Jason Gillikin and Demand Media) If I was in charge I would not chance anything about the organization structure because after analyzing the structure I came to a conclusion that the structure is not the problem, the problem is the office politics.  

In a way, it is not the structure that needs change it is the company’s office politics which need to change.  To eliminate office politics, I propose that Microsoft adopt Germany’s work attitude which is to work cooperatively instead of working against each other. 

To what extent does corporate culture influence the corporate culture?

Corporate culture governs the ways a company’s owners and employee think, feel and act. To an extend the organization structure will influence the corporate culture by establishing that there are always someone better them and they must do whatever it takes to get to the top.