NOT a Great Place to Work: Microsoft Corp

Yesterday I wrote about my happy 1-day return to the Microsoft Nederland office because I had some business to do: another set of presentations on my beloved 'New Way of Working' (NWoW). I blogged that I still found it a great place to work and my former colleagues agree with me, because Microsoft Nederland had been chosen as the 'Great Place to Work' for the third time in a row. A tremendous achievement.

However if you look at the US Great Place to Work site, we see a completely different picture. In the top 100 of best places to work Microsoft finishes 72nd. Yes, 72nd!! I would be so ashamed that I would resign from participating in this competition immediately or do everything to become a top tier player. But obviously Microsoft Corporation doesn't care very much about this list and - in my very personal opinion - also not much about the work environment of their employees. They were no 86 in 2008, then rising to a "promising" 38th position in 2009. But obviously that was too much to cope with and they dropped back to no 51 in 2010 and now 72 in 2011. What a sharp contrast with the Netherlands and other European countries where Microsoft usually finishes in the top 3.

What is the cause of all this?

Well maybe the closer you are physically collocated to hard ball guys like Steve (Ballmer, CEO), Steven (Sinofsky; Windows lead and desktop die-hard) and Kevin (Turner, COO) the tougher it gets. Maybe employees in Corp are more pessimistic about their future now that Microsoft has been dropping the ball on smartphones and tablets (I had my first Microsoft smartphone and tablet back in 2003!!) and is playing a slow catch up with Google (Office 365, Live). Also Ray Ozzie being moved out of Microsoft - the one with the best vision on the future of software technology - might have to do with. I don't know whether this has influence on the employee well-being.

What I DO know however is that Microsoft Corp did have one of the worst office environments I have ever seen (OK a little exaggerated, but I set a high standard, especially for a super rich multinational). On the outside - the much acclaimed campus - it looks all great. But if you enter those buildings - building 18, my worst nightmare! - it is really terrible. The energy is being completely drained from you when you walk down the corridor and see the tiny offices that are now occupied by 2 or sometimes even 3 people. Half of the offices are on the 'inside' and have no natural light. It is always a mess, because people are moving every 2 or 3 months and never empty their cardboard boxes. The carpet is old and sort of brownish (What is it with Microsoft and brown? Remember the first Zune?). In short it looks like everything is being done to demotivate the workers. And it works. Rank 72 in 2011.

Now I hear you say: "Well, why don't the people from Microsoft Nederland tell those Corp people how to do it right, since they know it so well?". Well its not for lack of trying. They tried and tried again. But I have frequently noticed during my times at Microsoft that 'Corp' people are just too arrogant to listen to co-workers outside their sanctified inner circle. They really suffer from a 'not invented here' syndrome. Because after all, we are Corp and we invent the stuff around here. You just go and sell it.

A former colleague of mine and a true NWoW ambassador tried to get one of the vice presidents enthusiastic about the 'New World of Work' (which is what they call NWoW at Microsoft). And it looked like he succeeded. He got this VP into agreeing to do a measurement with an instrument that measured several work dimensions. The results were so bad for the division, that the VP of course accused the messenger and the message instead of acknowledging the problem. My former colleague told me later that after that incident it was 'a career limiting' thing to even talk about the New World of Work in this VP's neighborhood.

No, at Microsoft Corp they are OK with place 72 on the top 100 list of best employers. After all, it is much better than place 86 back in 2008, isn't it?