HUMAN RESOURCE

What has Microsoft done for its people during COVID-19

Submitted To:
Prof. Tavleen Kaur

Submitted By:

Chirag Kadam 21BSP3408

Angela Jain 21BSP0724

Damandeep Singh 21BSP0787

Shikhar Srivastava 21BSP1049

Avilash Sen 21BSP0025

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The accomplishment of this project was made with the help and direction of Professor Tavleen Kaur who has
always been supportive and has helped in solving our confusions. She has guided us to approach the result of
the project. Above all, Professor Tavleen Kaur is a wonderful person who has been a great friend and a
support system to us. Without his encouragement, we would not have been able to beat the work pressure
and finish this study. We would also like to thank our parents and friends who helped us in finalizing this
project within the limited time frame.
 INTRODUCTION

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation which produces computer

software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best-known software products
are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet
Explorer and Edge web browsers. The work of the manpower of Microsoft is considered to be on technology’s
cutting-edge and personally challenging. According to the belief of the company, the employees are provided
with whatever technologies and tools they require for the achievement of the best possible outcomes; and
the employees of the company are expected for creating entertainment and software products which can
potentially be sold for millions of copies across the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every
company globally – from start-up, to enterprise. Whether 20 or 2000 people it took everyone by surprise and
shock. As a multinational corporation, Microsoft made certain to put systems in place to prepare their team
and set them up for going remote. IT was observed that to help address the need of their
employees, Microsoft launched a global skills initiative aimed at bringing more digital skills to 25 million
people worldwide.
 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Within only a few months, COVID-19 has provoked a massive demand shock, setting off job losses that far
exceed the scale of the Great Recession a decade ago. The world will need a broad economic recovery that
will require in part the development of new skills among a substantial part of the global workforce. This report
discourses the people orientation done by Microsoft for its employees in such grave and uncertain times.
 LITERATURE REVIEW
https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/remote-working-taking-a-toll-on-work-life-balance-heres-what-
employers-can-do-12008822.htm

Remote working taking a toll on work-life balance; here's what employers can do
Non-stop video calls, emails, and chats were impacting the mental well-being of employees. Employees who
were better satisfied with their work-life balance were sending 36 percent fewer emails after working
hours, showed the study. Even after almost two years of the global outbreak of the COVID pandemic, it is still
difficult for people to maintain a work-life balance.

Ways to improve work-life balance

Company research showed that a 5-to-10-minute buffer between collaborations not only reduces stress levels
for employees but also enables better focus and engagement. It was found that an early Monday meeting
kept the employees under pressure on weekends. Similarly, Friday evening meetings put down employees
before they unplug for the weekend. The study disclosed that employees frequently multitask during
meetings they find irrelevant or have a lack of interest or engagement in.

In fact, employees were encouraged to mute notifications in order to remove the pressure to check emails
and chats after work hours. The step was aimed at encouraging employees to spend more time away from
work. Largely, the idea is to empower employees to be able to say «no» to tasks that are not «mission
critical». This freedom gives them a better sense of work-life balance.

The key lesson of it all was to tell managers to prioritise their team members to improve their work-life
balance. A few small steps to improve work-life balance would bring stability even in the face of chaos.

OBJECTIVES
 To find out what has Microsoft done for its people orientation during the global pandemic COVID-19.
 Our mission is to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential by
creating technology that transforms the way people work, play, and communicate .
 Strategic objective applicable under Microsoft's broad differentiation generic strategy is to develop
business competitive advantage through continuous product innovation.
 This strategic objective is crucial to long-term success, considering that Microsoft operates in a rapidly
changing and highly dynamic industry.

BODY
Microsoft has fashioned to support its team during this uncertain time. These strategies are:

• Lots of updates and communications

• Propelling a 'work from home' approach early
• Twofold down on flexi-hour policies
• Opening up backup day-care to employees’ networks and staff associations
• Adding two extra weeks of leave for employees
• Updating their benefits websites
• Bringing all interviews on online mode

The pandemic has dawned a harsh light on what was already a widening skills gap around the world – a gap
that will need to be closed with even greater urgency to hasten economic recovery. This somewhat long split
among labour market for capacities in the work market is apparently determined by three key long stretch
elements:

1. The rapid rise of AI-powered technologies that are driving a new era of computerization
2. The increasing need for technological insight to compete in a changing commercial arena
3. The decrease in employer-based training investments over the past two decades.
Circumnavigating these challenges to close the skills gap that required a renewed partnership between
stakeholders across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. At its heart, it was a comprehensive
technology initiative that was built on data and digital technology. It started with data on jobs and
skills from the LinkedIn Economic Graph. It offered free access to content in LinkedIn Learning,
Microsoft Learn, and the GitHub Learning Lab, and couples these with Microsoft Certifications and
LinkedIn job seeking tools. In addition, Microsoft is backing the effort with $20 million in cash grants to
help non-profit organizations worldwide assist the people who need it most. One-quarter of this total,
or $5 million, were provided in cash grants to community-based non-profit organizations that are led
by and serve communities of colour in the United States.

Their vision for skills prolonged beyond these immediate steps for job seekers. Employees also needed to skill
and reskill through their careers, and they wanted to make it easier for employers to help. Their vision is a
connected “system of learning” that helps empower everyone to pursue lifelong learning. That is why they
announced that Microsoft is developing a new learning app in Microsoft Teams to help employers upskill new
and existing employees. This brought together best in class content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn,
third-party training providers, and a company’s own learning content and make it all available in a place
where employees can easily learn in the flow of their work.

Microsoft also pledged that they will make stronger data and analytics available to governments around the
world so they can better assess local economic needs. Finally, they used their voices to advocate for public
policy inventions that they believed would develop the skilling opportunities that people required in the
changed economy.

While this represents the largest skills initiative in Microsoft’s history, they predicted that no company can
come close to closing the skills gap alone. Constant progress required a renewed partnership between
stakeholders across the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and they were committed to support this.

DELIVERING THE Q&A TO EMPLOYEES

Once Schoonover’s team wove the elements of the production together, his team handed it off to the second
half of the Microsoft Production Studios, the part of the house responsible for patching the live feed into
Yammer. There, employees watched, asked questions, and interacted with each other before, during, and
after the event.
“For us, having this be a remote Microsoft Teams meeting didn’t change anything,” says Jeff Tyler, a digital
media experience lead for Microsoft Production Studios. “At the end of the day, what came out of our
production switching room was the same as always—the only difference was where people were presenting
from.”

The team did all of things it normally does, including adding real-time captioning, watching for video lagging,
and getting ready to make the session ready for on-demand viewing once the event was complete, says
Kristyona Rosin, a webcast and transmission team lead for RUN Studios, the vendor company that supports
Microsoft Production Studios.

“We were very prepared for a larger-than-normal audience,” Rosin says. “We normally have about 10,000
employees online during a Q&A, and this time we had more than 22,000, which was a record. Another 13,000
employees watched a video-only live stream.” The event recording was then available to watch on-demand
for employees who missed the live show—more than 15,000 employees watched on demand.

Cirone says employees reacted positively to the meeting.

“We had more engagement than we’ve ever had on Yammer,” he says. “Employees asked lots of good
questions about the company, about how we’re all working from home, about our role in the crisis, and asking
what they could do to help. They were having a lot of interesting and supportive conversations with each
other.”

Going forward, Microsoft’s leadership team will continue to use the live events platform to meet and engage
with employees for as long as working from home is needed, Cirone says. And Microsoft is continuing to build
in new features and experiences to help remote-working employees and customers everywhere connect
through live events.
 EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Microsoft's change to deal with its agents during the overall pandemic deals with all pieces of their association,
including existing and new organizations from LinkedIn, GitHub, and Microsoft. Basic three work areas:
(1) The use of data to identify in-demand jobs and the skills needed to fill them;
(2) Free induction to learning and content designs to help people with encouraging the capacities needed by these
positions;
(3) Inexpensive certifications and quest for work instruments are permitted to help with people who encourage
these capacities pursue new positions.

REFERENCES

1. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/06/30/microsoft-launches-initiative-to-help-25-million-people-
worldwide-acquire-the-digital-skills-needed-in-a-covid-19-economy/
2. https://www.offerzen.com/blog/how-microsoft-supports-teams-during-covid-19