Employee Motivation and Retention Strategies -myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theEmployee Motivation and Retention Strategies at Microsoft. Answer: Introduction Retention and motivation of the employees are the two most vital aspects of any organisational human resource management as it only reflects the organisational productivity and the efficiency of the employees. The organisations are required to have those strategies that can build the morale and motivation of the workforce and help in retaining them in the organisation. Increased level ofmotivation influences an employee to work in a positive and efficient manner and rapidly attain the desired goals of the organisation. the organisation oppose to this have ineffective strategies regarding the motivation and retention of the employee face number of challenges as well as financial issues in the market too. It also make challenging for the organisations to retain the competent and skilled workforce (ALDamoe, Yazam and Ahmid, 2012). Therefore, for attaining a competitive advantage it is essential to have a motivated workforce in the organisation. Presently there are several organisations that are striving hard to take sue of effective strategies for retaining and motivating the organisational workforce. To motivate the employees there are diverse set of approaches for yielding the best talent from the market. The key factor in the strategies is remuneration of the employees and communication for making them assure that they are paid adequate compensation as well as for having an improved workplace environment with effective team building. There are various other strategies too for motivating the employees that comprises of performance appraisal, training, rewards and recognition, etc. (Abdullah, Ahsan and Alam, 2009). These strategies play vital role in retaining and motivating the workforce. It is also important for the companies to comprehend the significance of possessing a workforce which is highly motivated. There is also a viewpoint that implementing the motivation strategies is a waste of resources and cost but on the contrary, all the motivation strategies a re not expensive and the small organisations can even implement them in an affordable manner. In this paper, the key focus will be on the motivation and retention strategies of Microsoft Corporation, the issues faced by the company and the respective strategies to overcome the same. HRM and Organisational culture at Microsoft Microsoft was grounded in the year 1975 and presently is the leader of the technology industry with its continuous expansion and growth. The key success of Microsoft was recognized in the year 1980 when it had an association with the most one of the successful organisations of that time, IBM. Microsoft used to work on developing the operating system that was about to launch by IBM. Microsoft gained continuous success with its innovative software and technologies and gained extreme level of specialisation in the operating system. Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft had a huge attention on the organisational culture and the satisfaction of the employees. In present time, Microsoft is one of the top most companies where the employees want to work and the retention rate is also extremely high. There is a strong development of teams which works in team for the higher productivity and success of the organisation. The organisation possesses a strong and robust organisational culture which help s in motivating the employees and delivering the most potential outcomes (Chakraborty, 2010). All such aspects helped Microsoft in recognizing as a leader in the technological industry and producing the most innovative operating systems. All these factors support in enhancing the performance of the employees as well as productivity and growth of the company. The company is also recognized as the employer that has the most effective and efficient retention and motivation strategies. The strengthening and powerful organisational culture of Microsoft helps in fetching the interest of competent employees. The motivated employees used to work hard for the accomplishment of the organisational goals which offered a number of competitive and financial benefits to the organisation. Till the period of late 1990s only the organisational culture of retention And motivation was acknowledged but later to this, the organisation started experiencing a number of human resource issues that weakens th e comap0ny in number of ways. But with the rapid growth and success, Microsoft neglected the organisational culture development and there were more efforts for attaining profits rather than satisfaction of the employees. The research and development activities were acquiring huge funding for serving the customers with most suitable and innovative products. In order to dominate the hardware and the computer software industry and to reap all the competitive benefits, Microsoft did not realise the pressure it was imposing g on its employees. There were taking place activities such as changing in the organisational culture, restructuring of the practices of human resource, cut down of the various programs, etc. All these factors laid down a direct impact on the performance, productivity and profitability of the organisation as the employees stared feeling de-motivated (Chakraborty and Gupta, 2010). Issues related to retention and motivation of the workforce at Microsoft Discrimination The issue of discrimination was realized when some of the Black African American have raised their voice against the unfair practices taking place in the organisation. There were filed some law suits against the organisation against the management practices of Microsoft (Chakraborty and Gupta, 2010). They mentioned that they were offered comparatively less wages, compensations and incentives which were offered to the American employees. In the performance assessment, these people were ranked low so that they do not get promotions and bonuses which were marked as an inequitable practice of the management (Sandhya and Kumar, 2011). There was immediate termination of the Black Americans without any prior notification or appropriate justification given to them as well as they were replaced with the contractual workers. There was a hundred percent non-tolerance policy which was used to followed by the organisation but such activities was the result of incompliance of the practice in an ad equate manner. And thus, there tool place a number of racial discrimination issues that de-motivated the staff and there occurred high turnover rates and dissatisfaction at workplace (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Hiring Issues Because of the continuously growing pressure and the unfair practices, a group of competent as well as tenured employees left the organisation and this was one of the most challenging aspects for the HR department of Microsoft to find their replacements. Due to a completely disorganised state of the Microsofts organisational culture, there was squat number of competent employees who were found interested in working at Microsoft. Although, the company was providing a great opportunity for the career development and bonuses but because of getting sidelined or blended in such a disturbed organisational culture, potential candidates do not wanted to being employed in Microsoft. This resulted in intense hiring issues at the organisation which leads to increased number of issues related to motivation and retention of the existing employees. Strict and tough leadership Microsoft was well known for the strict and tough leadership it followed for managing its employees as the organisation wanted to have excellent outcomes and productivity with upsurge level of efficiency, for recognizing as the leader in the industry. Due to high level of perfectionist organisational culture, Microsoft tends to pose huge penalties on its workers for any kind of fault or mistake (Samuel and Chipunza, 2009). There was no consideration regarding the personal life of the employees or no emphasis on the work-life balance practice rather the employees were forced and pressurized to have their complete concentration on the efficiency of the task. Thus, fulfilling of workplace responsibilities was becoming an obligation more than a responsibility. There was a complete questioning which took place for getting g justification for the actions taken by the employees for their work (Monsen and Wayne Boss, 2009). There was passed positive as well as negative feedbacks to the workf orce as well as it was asked to employees to not to celebrate their success and rather must pay more attention for achieving more improved performance and efficiency in their work. The employees who were found performing not much well were threatened to be terminated. Thus, all such factors changed the organisational culture and the staff remained highly de-motivated. All such aspect and strict leadership resulted in increased turnover rate and dissatisfaction of the employees (Baloch, 2009). Surge in attrition rates Because of the increased level of pressure and work load, no importance to the work-life balance of the employees, discrimination issues, the deteriorated culture of the organisation and ineffective human resource management at Microsoft, the existing employees started feeling distressed and de-motivated which forces them to leave the organisation (Mendes and Stander, 2011). Because of the lesser priorities to the satisfaction of the employees, most of the competent employees left the organization. Such situation posed a negative e impact on the remaining employees and thus they also switch the organization. Thus, managing the attrition rate was challenging for the organisation which ultimately resulted in high level of retention and motivation issues at the workplace (Beecham, et al., 2008). Lack of competition As Microsoft became the leader in the technology sector, there was no other organisation or company that can give competition to Microsoft. Because of rapid expansion, being a perfectionist and the most successful organisation, there was no threat of market competition. And this became one of the most important factors in weakening of the organization culture as Microsoft paid no attention to the employees (Manzoor, 2012). The workforce wanted some change in their work to have a relaxing working environment but due to being a company serving its customer with best quality, there was no relaxation to the employees as well as no efforts was made to impress the employees as Microsoft was already reaping the benefits of success. The organisational culture was linked with the desire for growth and success of the organisation and as a result some of the employees left the organisation to escape from the long process of perfection. They were in a search of some relaxing and new environment and thus it resulted in de-motivated staff and increased turnover rate of the employees (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). Bureaucracy Due to increased level of global expansion, there was a need to have mote number of employees and for managing those newly recruits as well as high number of workforces, the company take use of bureaucratic management style. Instead of improving the process of recruitment and recruiting only the competent employees, the organisation had a large incompetent workforce and managed it through bureaucratic style of management (Kyndt, etv al., 2009). The employees who were tenured and experienced were used to get promoted and there were very less benefits offered to the newly recruited employees. And because of extreme level of bureaucracy, there were number of employees who left the organisation which resulted in retention issues and existence of de-motivated staff in Microsoft (Carleton, 2011). Solution to the issues of employee retention and motivation Improvement in the lines of Communication To overcome such issues, the CEO Ballmer trued to have improvements in the lines of communication among the executive of HR department and the organisational workforce for assuring that there is addressing, identification and satisfaction of the employees sentiments, demands and needs. He ensured that there is a strong and smooth flow of communication among all the departments as well as the grass root employees so that the issues can be resolved on an instant basis and no employee left the organisation due to in-adherence of their grievances or issues (Jiang, et al., 2012). Such strategy or initiative helped the organisation in a deeper sense as there was increased level of motivation of the employees as well as the turnover rate of the employees also experienced a sudden decline. With increasing effectiveness of the organisational human resource department, there was faster resolution of the grievances and issues of the workforce which developed a strong organisational culture and a motivated workforce (Chiboiwa, Samuel and Chipunza, 2010). Improvement in the Compensation System and Performance Appraisal System The next strategy or solution the increasing issues of motivation and retention was improvement in the compensation system and the performance appraisal system. In Microsoft, it was analyzed that there was a system of forced ranking where the tenured employees were rewarded and given high level of compensation in comparison with the new recruiters. There was an extreme level of biasness that took place in analyzing the performance of the employees, rewarding them as well as in giving those incentives (Chakraborty and Gupta, 2010). To offer an equal opportunity to all the employees, there was initiated an improved compensation system and the performance appraisal system. The effective performance system was based on offering compensations and incentives to the actual performers with no biasness in decision making. The one who performs well gets a reward and promotion including the Black African Americans. This resulted in elimination of the racial discrimination issues and also the er adication of the unfair practices. All such initiatives of the organisation resulted increased and upsurge level of motivation among the workforce. They used to work harder to attain benefits and there occurred improved organisational culture and long term association of the employees with the organisation (Collings and Mellahi, 2009). Upsurge in Employee Benefits To resolve the issues and conflicts in respect with the squat employee benefits and cut down of the various programs, there were several changes that were adopted by Ballmer in order to offer high employee benefits to the organisational workforce (Chakraborty and Gupta, 2010). There were a number of benefits including various health benefits, discounts, child care benefits, insurance benefits, free of cost eatables and many other benefits. Such benefits were offered to the employees to encourage them to stay in the organisation and to work hard with increased level of motivation (James and Mathew, 2012). The employees felt a great experience by getting all such benefits while working at Microsoft. The salaries of the employees were integrated with these employee benefits and there was seen an increased level of motivation and commitment towards the work. It was considered as a perfect and practical resolution to the increasing number of issues in the organisation for both in fetching the attention of the competent employees and to retain the existing workforce. It helped in changing the minds of the workforce towards the brand image of Microsoft and once this was been implemented, there was a much contended and satisfied workforce. The benefits provided to the employees might be small in nature but the overall impact which was posed by these initiatives and benefits was huge as it helped in gaining a lost confidence once again in the organisational workforce to work hard for the accomplishment of the goals and objectives (Deery, 2008). Workplace Set Ups The one more important and significant strategy for overcoming the challenges of decreased rate of motivation and retention of the employees was setting up of new workplaces. For addressing the human resource issues, this was considered as a vital step as Microsoft restructured itself by having a more creative, innovative and redesigned workplaces for the employees so that they can be encouraged to have more communication with their colleagues and team members (Chakraborty and Gupta, 2010). There were formation of clusters and with the effective flow of communication, there was team building which eradicates the issues of cultural diversity as well as a more informal and satisfactory working environment take place in the organisation (Islam and Zaki Hj. Ismail, 2008). The employees used to get increased level of cooperation from other employees as well as from the human resource managers. The change in the workplace set up motivated the employees as they feel valued. There were some views that these changes are irrelevant as well as considered as wastage of the funds and resources but when Microsoft analyzed the overall results, it was fond that there was a key role in the increased productivity and motivation of the employees of the redesigning of the workplace set ups. Hence it was realized that it is one of the most effective solution for retaining the employees as well as to boost their morale to work hard (Hong, et al., 2012). Conclusion and Recommendations From the case analysis as well as the various issues faced by Microsoft in retaining and motivating the workforce, it can be concluded that Microsoft was required to have increased emphasis on developing the organizational culture as employee-centric rather than profit-centric. The key reason behind the increased turnover rate of the tenured and competent employees was the deteriorated organisational culture and a feeling of being not required. The employees felt that they are over pressurized to deliver improved output with high level of efficiency as well as they have no career opportunity left with them while associating with Microsoft. It is also started that employee retention and the employee motivation are those two aspects that can impact all other functions of any organisation and so there is an extensive need that the human resource department must keep a strict eye on both these factors. In case of Microsoft as well as any other company, it is true that a motivated group o f employees will offer high productivity and efficiency to the organisation in comparison with an organisation with de-motivated employee group. The employees who possess increased level of motivation are more productive and are much beneficial for an organisation as they maintain a good balance in their professional and personal lives. Therefore, to have continuous growth and profit, the organisations must strive hard foe satisfying their employees and assuring that their needs are met in an effective manner. It is also recommended to Microsoft that it can take use of strategies such as by providing the employees with sound training so that there can be gained professional development as well as the personal development of the workforce. 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