Company: Microsoft
Date: 2010-02-15
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former

OK Place To Work In Tough Economy (But Watch Out When Employment Comes Back)
Pros: * Great Benefits: Still offer all medical and dental without co pays or contributions
* Very technology savvy company with lots of free software
* Ability to buy company software for family and friends at great discounts
* Lots of information to share (if you know where to find it)
* Lots of employee surveying each year: Survey results for managers are chance to give direct feedback and results are an important part of leadership success; those with bad scores are put on notice
* Great amount of work has gone into career ladders and helping employees and managers understanding what the attributes of success and areas of opportunity are at most levels in job families
* Beautiful Redmond campus with many great new buildings.  Great commuter alternatives, free bus system and ways to get around the increasingly large campus
Cons: * Without a doubt, the most critical work environment I have ever worked.  Very few "attaboys".  If 95% is working and 5% needs improvement, the focus is on the 5%
* Never worked in a place where people are as fungible as here.  It's burn em and churn em at it's worst
* Very little appreciation for all the hard work that employees put out.  In the end, you're just a cog in a wheel
*Most email-centric culture I ever worked in.  Everyone emails everyone all the time and copies half the world.  On many occasions, I would see an email trail that could have been stopped 3 days ago if the two principals to the issue has just bothered to have a 3 minute conversation.  People sitting literally next door to each other will email one another rather than talk to each other!
* Very self service environment.  Very little administrative support except at the highest levels (GM and above).  Everyone else is on their own.  Be prepared to make your own calendar invites and copies and travel arrangements by yourself......frequently
* Career ladder and job family information doesn't mean enough.  Too often, promotions and career advancement are based on good old fashioned politics and who do you know.
* Work/life balance is a crock.  More like work/life blend!  And in the end, your family pays.  Even when you are home, you're often not available because you're expected to be on email at night.  Especially true if your job has any global scope.  Then expect doing emails from home until 11 pm and then when you get up at 6 am, there are 30-40 emails from other parts of the world that will need your attention (because of course, once the email has been sent, the monkey is off the senders back and on yours even if you haven't had the time to address the issues.
* Too many meeting and not enough time to get work done (except at night and on weekends)
* Still too much reliance on stock as part of compensation package without the realization that the stock hasn't performed well for about 10 years.  This comes from the top (Steve Ballmer) who hasn't owned up to the fact that incentive targets are out of whack with the market (except at GM level and above at which point, you are golden).  Need to up the incentive targets at levels close to Director.
*Company made a big mistake having first ever layoffs at time of still huge multi-billion dollar profits per quarter.  Sent a clear message that people don't matter and this will come back to haunt them when the hiring market improves.