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Internal Microsoft Poll Shows Employees Are Less Satisfied With Pay (cnbc.com)
According to an annual companywide survey, obtained by CNBC, Microsoft employees said they're less fairly paid in 2018 than they were in any of the past three years. When asked if "total compensation (base pay, bonus, equity) is competitive compared to similar jobs at other companies," only 61 percent said it was, down from 65 percent in 2017 and 67 percent each of the two prior years. From the report: Additionally, just 62 percent of the employees agreed that "people are rewarded according to their job performance," down from 63 percent last year and 64 percent in 2016. Those two questions received some of the lowest scores on the survey. The company said that 86 percent of Microsoft's employees participated. The results, shared by Chief People Officer Kathleen Hogan in April, are a further indication of the challenge that Microsoft and other tech companies face in hiring and retaining top talent. Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, is just a few miles from Amazon's home and isn't far from the Seattle offices of Google, Facebook and a growing number of start-ups. Chief People Officer Kathleen Hogan said the company takes the issue "seriously," and that it will work to ensure a more balanced pay structure.
Why is this even news?
Because it is about salaries at a tech company. What could be more relevant to Slashdotters, other than maybe the cost of renting a basement?
I am surprised Microsoft is publicizing this. They are hurting recruitment by broadcasting that they have crappy pay, and raising expectations of salary increases among existing employees.
If the pay is junk, it means costs are down. Investors like to hear that, donâ(TM)t they?
This happens at every big company, and Microsoft also has super-deep pockets so they can afford to have some dead wood. If you're measuring 'time put in" as years with the company, that's true...there are some people in big companies who know the right people and can coast for decades. But you can also measure time put in as how many 100-hour weeks you put in on product deathmarches, how tethered you are to VSTS 24 hours a day, etc. Those people who are workaholics will also be recognized over very productive, smart people because they're more visible. They're the ones leaving work at 1 AM and coming back for more.
As a counter example to MS dead wood, look at HP/HPE. The bottom has dropped out of non-white box servers and storage...if you believe the pundits no one is buying new equipment. Companies also have less of a need for third-rate crappy offshore IT support. As a result, HP/HPE/DXC have been throwing thousands of people overboard. We actually do buy equipment still, and it's a normal occurence to have the person you've been talking with for years suddenly get fired. HP could afford to be bloatted when they were making a healthy margin on servers and selling a ton of them.Azure.
Microsoft doesn't have this problem. They have huge cash reserves and are about to lock every single Windows enterprise into Office 365 and Azure. I wouldn't expect the dead wood to go away anytime soon.