Microsoft China on the Balance Beam

Microsoft is one of the places where many talented people aspire to work, and Li Jian is one of them. In 2001, just after graduating from Shanghai Jiaotong University, he went to Microsoft Global Technology Center with great ambition to apply for a job. After 6 rounds of intense interviews, all the way through, he came to the last level - in front of Tang Jun, the then general manager of the center, but was unfortunately blocked from the door. However, he was not discouraged, and after the second and third efforts, he was finally lucky enough to enter the door of Microsoft.

As to why he is so persistent and dedicated, he explained: "It's not mainly because of the high salary that Microsoft offers, but because everything else in Microsoft is satisfactory. I just want to prove that I have the ability to be Microsoft. "

Recruitment: Balancing Excellence and Appropriateness

Two years later, Tang Jun, who has been promoted to President of Microsoft (China) Co., Ltd., is still fresh in his memory. Tang Jun recalled that Li Jian wrote him a letter after being rejected for the first time, asking why he could not get into Microsoft. After learning that professional knowledge was not enough, he searched for various books to supplement Microsoft's technology. Then, he made a second attempt, and was found that the technology was not enough, but there was obvious improvement. After that, he studied further, came a third time, and passed all the exams.

Li Jian later said something that moved Tang Jun very much. He said, "Mr. Tang, whether you hire me or not is not that important to me anymore. The important thing is that I am cultivating my own learning spirit. Develop your ability to face challenges and know how to forge ahead in the face of adversity."

"I think this kind of courage to challenge and perseverance is exactly what Microsoft wants, so I finally hired him. Now he has I was promoted to manager and became a very good employee." Tang Jun said. And Li Jian is only one of about 2,000 employees who have recruited and interviewed during Tang Jun's 9 years at Microsoft, and there are countless similar examples. Tang Jun introduced that Microsoft pays great attention to choosing employees that suit its corporate culture, and they like to recruit people who are very innovative and passionate about doing things; in addition, people who have a certain foundation, can be quickly improved through hard work, and are easy to shape after being nurtured. . To be precise, Microsoft does not need the best employees, but the best employees for Microsoft.

Microsoft's talent acquisition system is very strict. All applicants, regardless of the position, go through 6 to 7 rounds of interviews. There are interviews in the personnel department, as well as interviews with colleagues, supervisors and managers in the same department and other departments. The technical level, vocational skills, intelligence, and teamwork spirit of the candidates are assessed from all aspects. The last is the general manager interview, mainly to grasp from the overall situation whether the applicant is suitable for Microsoft, whether it conforms to Microsoft's corporate culture, philosophy and values, and whether it can be integrated into Microsoft's large group.

Watch the Details Microsoft's personnel department has a well-established approach to training all managers in interviewing skills. Very clear and specific guidance is given on what questions to ask and what not to ask. One of the things that is highlighted here is to make sure that even if someone is good enough, you are willing to work with him in the future.

Tang Jun said: "This is also what I have repeatedly reminded subordinates to pay special attention to when interviewing employees, to assess a person's basic quality and character from all aspects. Because if the quality is high and the character is good, you must be willing to work with him. Work. Although it is impossible to fully judge a person's character in such a short period of time, it can still be observed through some details."

Obviously, if an employee does not agree with the company's culture and philosophy from the very beginning , then he cannot be satisfied with the company in the future, and the company will not be satisfied with him. Paying attention to balance from the beginning of the recruitment process is the premise of creating employee satisfaction.

Incentives: Balance material and spiritual

Based on material treatment, after basically screening out two-way satisfactory talents from the recruitment process, Microsoft began to provide competitive material treatment for employees to share with the company economic interests. Whether compared with other industries or compared with companies in the same industry, Microsoft pays its employees higher wages and has a great advantage, so few people leave voluntarily even during the US government's lawsuit against it.

Recently, Microsoft introduced a "stock allowance" system, which replaced the 17-year-old "stock option" system, and issued restricted stock to employees. Microsoft (China) employees will also receive their first stock awards in sync with their global counterparts. They said they were more satisfied with the new system. Because the former only gives employees the right to subscribe for Microsoft shares within a certain reasonable price range. If they don’t subscribe, it’s not worth a penny. And its value depends on the stock's appreciation while employees serve Microsoft. The latter is directly given to employees as stocks, which are more visible and palpable.

Microsoft also rewards employees through bonuses and special bonuses. The company will conduct a performance assessment every six months, comprehensively assessing sales indicators, customer satisfaction, compliance with company rules and regulations, and giving corresponding bonuses. Significant and outstanding contributions will be rewarded through special bonuses. For example, an employee has won a very important customer, or won the trust of a customer in a very critical link, and established a reputation for the company in front of customers. Any quota limit is entirely dependent on individual performance.

On the basis of Microsoft's global, Microsoft (China) has taken some special measures for China's history and culture. For example, allowing employees to get more tax concessions, providing housing allowances, transportation subsidies, lunch subsidies, giving congratulations to employees when they get married and having children, giving gifts on major traditional Chinese festivals, and giving red envelopes at the end of the year. These Chinese-style human-friendly systems are not available in foreign countries. Although the money is not much, it gives employees a real sense of satisfaction.

Spiritual Rewards as a Guarantee While meeting material needs, people also need to meet spiritual needs. Every year, Microsoft selects 30 to 40 outstanding contribution awards among 50,000 employees around the world. This award is equal to every ordinary employee. Compared with the headquarters, Microsoft (China) has added three more awards: President Award, selected by Tang Jun himself; Annual Outstanding Contribution Award, selected by the entire management team; Outstanding Employee Award, selected by secret ballot of all employees, once every six months, About 15 people are rated each time.

Tang Jun said, "We added these three awards because we saw that Chinese employees are particularly concerned about spiritual rewards, which is directly related to our culture." What is valued is neither the President's Award nor the Annual Outstanding Contribution Award, but the Outstanding Employee Award. They have just handed out an outstanding employee award recently, and all the winners are very excited. Among them, there are not only deputy general managers who are fair and caring about their subordinates, but also general employees who have made work achievements and are willing to help their colleagues selflessly. Because the first two awards are purely based on sales performance or other contributions, they are obvious to all, and they have a little sense of the results in advance. The latter must be unanimously recognized by the company, which is indeed not easy and difficult to predict, so everyone regards it as the supreme honor.

Through the combination of material and spiritual rewards, the relationship between pay and return is balanced, so that employees feel that the treatment they receive is fair and at least satisfactory.

Development: Balancing the present and the future

In addition to fair treatment, Chinese employees pay more attention to whether their personal career in a company has a promising future, including whether they can learn something on the job , whether there is room for development, whether they can get promotion opportunities, etc.

Carrying out a series of trainings to increase human capital In order to meet the needs of employees' continuous learning, Microsoft headquarters, Asia Pacific, and China have set up special training institutions, and at the same time provide 360-degree training from three channels - one-third One through internal traditional training, one third rely on online training, and one third hire professional training companies.

For employees who have just joined the company, Microsoft provides a general training package called "MS101" around the world to fully understand the company's philosophy, history and culture, product technology, etc. Microsoft (China) has also set up similar training to let new employees understand Microsoft's development history in China, business model, major partners, and marketing skills with Chinese characteristics. Each new employee was also sent to the United States for a week to give them a first-hand experience of the culture at Microsoft headquarters.

Then do professional training, and train employees in different positions for their own work. For example: training communication skills, presentation skills, and ways to solve difficult customer problems for sales personnel; training for managers on how to manage subordinates and motivate teams, etc.

In addition to planned training, Microsoft also adds flexible training content at any time. The company gives employees sufficient initiative. For the existing training courses, employees can choose according to their own wishes, without the approval of the superior, and there is no layer-by-layer structure control. Employees can also put forward some urgently needed training content. After the personnel department collects opinions, if it thinks that it will directly help the work and bring value to both the employee and the company, it will be approved. For example, Microsoft (China) employees The request for funding weekend training was met.

There is also a "bench program" training that the company selects for its employees. It aims to build a management echelon, that is, to conduct alternate training for those managers who have the potential to be promoted, so that they can understand the concepts, systems and skills of Microsoft management.

In comparison, Microsoft Global is more specialized in training, while Microsoft (China) focuses on comprehensiveness. Tang Jun said: "Because our employees lack comprehensive experience, knowledge and ability, and we hope that every employee can represent the overall image of Microsoft after going out, the requirements in all aspects are very high. Normative, behavior, words and deeds are professionally trained, and it is specific to how to speak properly when facing customers and leaders. In addition, the ability to speak is also emphasized, but there is no such requirement in the headquarters. "Through all-round training, the staff's needs are met. Learning needs, so that their personal human capital has been increased.

Provide development space and highlight personal value. After employees have comprehensively improved their abilities through learning, they want to bring them into full play. Microsoft provides a good space for development, truly empowers every employee and encourages them to innovate. Tang Jun said: "People's instinct is to try to go further. If there are too many constraints and he is surrounded by a fixed circle, he will not hit the wall. Therefore, Microsoft gives employees a free sky. A real stage."

Microsoft (China) Public Relations Manager Ma Tao introduced that as a manager, he really has decision-making power, not an empty title. The boss believed that she knew more about the media, and only pointed out to her the general direction and overall framework of the company's product promotion in the market, but never pointed fingers at specific things, restricting what she could do and what she could not do. For example, specific matters such as what media the company cooperates with are all up to her. This kind of development space makes people feel that the work is meaningful and the individual is valuable. Then I like the job and want to do more.

Microsoft is very opposed to the blue-collar technology model, believing that once technicians become members of the assembly line, they will become mechanical and lack innovation. Software personnel may be called software developers (software development engineers) in other companies, but are called software design engineers (software design engineers) in Microsoft, both of which are referred to as SDE, but there is an essential difference - Microsoft puts the power of all software design Delegated to each engineer, let them do both design and implementation. Tang Jun said: "If it were you, wouldn't you want to design more perfect? Make the implementation result more ideal? Don't you have the potential and desire to innovate?"

The consulting department of Microsoft (China) is a proof. Once any general consultant takes over a project, he is fully responsible for everything related to technology, fully represents Microsoft in front of customers, and has full decision-making power, including the technology platform and products used, the direction and mode of development. Lead by him. For example, the employees in charge of cooperating with China Unicom on the CDMA1X project have a great sense of achievement, because this is a very critical platform that affects the layout of China's CDMA and the development of the entire communications industry.

Provide necessary support to stimulate personal potential Microsoft not only provides employees with development space, but also provides resource support when necessary. Tang Jun felt the same way about this. When he first entered Microsoft, as an ordinary SDE, he saw that the company's development program at that time was to make the English version first, and then make the version in other languages. As a result, the time difference between the other version and the English version was very long. And a lot of development work is repetitive, which is time-consuming and expensive. So he came up with the idea of synchronous development, but it must be implemented with the cooperation of many people, so he proposed it to his boss. After the boss found it feasible after research, he encouraged him to try, and gave strong support from the company level. As a result, he realized the original vision, changed Microsoft's development philosophy and workflow, and greatly improved business value.

"That's how I went from being an SDE to being a department manager. Then I worked in tech support, created the Microsoft Global Technology Center, and now I'm president of Microsoft (China). I am very satisfied with the jobs. As a native Chinese, I have held all three of the most important positions at Microsoft, and it is rare to find someone as experienced as me in the whole company."

Such examples are also Li Wanjun is one of the ordinary employees who appear at any time. At that time, he saw that the report form of the company's internal management was not perfect, and it happened that Microsoft launched a new Internet-based portal technology. In this technology, he built a portal website for the global technology center, so that managers can view all the performance status of the company at a glance, including how many customers have been served in the past day, customers satisfaction, employee productivity, spending for the day, etc.

Li Wanjun's success, first of all, stems from his personal interest and obsession with technology, and secondly, thanks to the strong support of the company. To build a portal website in Shanghai, you need to capture data from many parts of the company, you need to contact the headquarters, you need to connect with the company's intranet, and you need the cooperation of the personnel department and the finance department.

"Without my approval, without the support of the company, an ordinary engineer would not be able to obtain these confidential data, let alone implementation." Tang Jun said. Now, Microsoft is using the system he invented all over the world, and the management efficiency within the company has been greatly improved. Li not only contributed to the company, but also created value for himself. He became the youngest department manager at Microsoft at the age of 23, and is now working at headquarters, with opportunities for further promotion.

Microsoft also adopts a one-to-one approach to specifically plan the career development path of employees according to the work nature of employees in different positions and the different growth needs of each individual. Every year, employees have two opportunities to propose to the company their career development direction in the next six months and what help they need. Then, the personnel department will make a basic career plan, and the direct manager will discuss the specific career development path with the employees, and finally closely combine the specific training, development space and resource support provided.

Tang Jun said that he faces challenges in providing more career development opportunities for Chinese employees, which is caused by the differences between Chinese and Westerners. "We have more people here who are interested in management positions. It seems that only by becoming a manager can one fully recognize one's achievements. In the United States, there is no such problem at all. Many people do not want to be managers, but they are willing to be pure software designers. .But the management positions that the company can offer are limited. So many people do a good job, still a technical person at Microsoft, and maybe have become a director at other companies, and he will be a little bit imbalanced."

Atmosphere: Balancing individual and collective

No matter how good a job is, no matter how promising it is, if the surrounding environment makes people unhappy, it cannot fully satisfy the employees. For employees, the conflict between personal life and work, the balance between achievement and pressure, and the integration of individuals and groups are also examined. As a company operating in China, it is also necessary to consider the different cultural backgrounds of the East and the West. The West pays attention to strict rules and regulations, while the Chinese cultural tradition pays more attention to human feelings rather than rules and regulations. It is necessary to pay more attention to people, create a harmonious working environment, and create a pleasant working atmosphere in order to lock people's hearts.

Caring for the lives of employees and creating a family atmosphere In order to solve some of the worries of employees, Microsoft (China) has set up a special logistics service team to help employees take care of their personal affairs when they are busy at work, including paying water and electricity bills. And the company always prepares free drinks, snacks and other food for employees who work overtime.

Ma Tao said: "Doing this makes everyone feel that the company really cares about them and can get help in times of difficulty, so they feel at ease and at ease, as if they are in a big warm family. "Tang Jun believes: "There is a big difference between Chinese and Americans. Americans mainly regard work as a means of survival, while Chinese regard work as the joy of life. Therefore, we must strive to create a family in the company. The atmosphere."

Tang Jun admitted that Microsoft also has shortcomings in improving employees' life satisfaction. That is, the score on the balance between employees' work and life is low, which leads to Microsoft (China) scores much higher than Hewitt's indicators in the two evaluations, but it still ranks behind other companies. Sacrificing a part of the living space will undeniably have a negative impact on employee satisfaction to a certain extent. Tang Jun said: "I knew this was a problem when I didn't participate in the evaluation. After I made the evaluation, I knew it was a problem. The next evaluation will still be a problem. This is caused by Microsoft's culture. All employees are workaholics. Difficult to solve."

Release work pressure and create a relaxed atmosphere Given that today's employees are under extremely high work pressure, many multinational companies actively promote an open corporate culture and a relaxed work atmosphere, which is particularly prominent at Microsoft .

Workers in the software industry are clearly under increased work pressure. In order to reduce the pressure on the technical level of employees, Microsoft has a check point every day when doing any software development, and discusses the problems together in the form of seminars. To reduce stress from business people, managers regularly communicate with them through one-on-one, direct conversations, to help reduce stress.

When Tang Jun communicates with employees, one of the questions he often asks is "How can you be happier in the process of work?" At the same time, he also encourages employees to express their opinions boldly. He promised his employees that they could knock on his door any time they had an idea. If you send him an email at any time, you must reply as soon as possible and solve the problem. "Pressure is invisible. If there is no channel to release it, it will be expanded. On the contrary, if there is a backing, it will be reduced, and it is not worth worrying about."

Make others great and create a collective atmosphere in any In the workplace, there is a positive collective atmosphere only when everyone works together towards a common goal. If everyone does their own thing and only focuses on the individual, everyone is vying for the top spot, or even fighting against each other, the collective atmosphere will become very negative, and no matter how enthusiastic one person is, it will be slowly worn away.

In order to create a collective atmosphere in which everyone works hard together, Microsoft has put forward the management concept of "Make Other People Great". That is, you are great only by making others great, and actively advocate the spirit of teamwork. Microsoft (China) emphasizes this more than any branch. "I make others great, so who makes me great? If you just become a devotee and don't get anything, then the idea becomes empty talk. So in addition to the idea, there must be a corresponding mechanism to ensure ." Tang Jun said.

Excellent employee appraisal is a good mechanism. First of all, in order to win this award, you must make others great, that is, show good teamwork spirit and provide selfless help to colleagues. Secondly, when considering promotion, if you have not won this award within a certain period of time, it will be greatly discounted or even not considered. Because this proves that you are not recognized by everyone, you must have some problems. Microsoft truly connects the concept of "making others great" directly with the development prospects of individuals, and mechanically motivates employees to work in this direction.

Through a series of measures that focus on a balance of the above four areas, Microsoft has created high employee satisfaction. In this regard, Tang Jun said he felt very satisfied. At the same time, he said that Microsoft has been in China for 10 years, and although it has made some achievements in employee satisfaction, it still needs to continue to improve and improve, and strive to bring greater surprises to employees.

Microsoft China on the Balance Beam

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