Microsoft: Two-year ban on reinstatement for underperformance
The wind seems to be blowing harder for employees at Microsoft: According to a report, employees with poor performance evaluations are being targeted.
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According to a report by Business Insider, software company Microsoft is introducing new measures to make its workforce more efficient. The business magazine quotes from an internal email from the new head of HR, Amy Coleman, to managers at the company. Among other things, it announces that Microsoft's managers can place underperforming employees under a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), which sets out clear expectations and a timetable for improvement.
If the employees concerned do not agree to the plan, there should be the option of termination agreements so that they can leave the company. According to the email, the new approaches should help managers to "accelerate high performance and address poor performance quickly".
It also states that employees with poor performance ratings or an active PIP may not be transferred internally. Employees who have left Microsoft with a poor performance rating or during an active PIP will also be barred from re-employment for two years. There should also be a clearer and more transparent system for how performance ratings on a scale of 0 to 200 points affect share awards and cash bonuses.
The email quoted in the report speaks of a globally standardized approach. Microsoft has not yet responded to an inquiry from the iX editorial team as to the extent to which these methods will soon be used in the Group's German subsidiaries.
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The new "performance culture"
Reports were already circulating at the beginning of the year that Microsoft had deliberately dismissed employees with poor performance, although the extent of this remained unclear. The software company is not alone among the tech giants in taking a tougher approach to its employees: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that he wanted to fire the five percent of the workforce with the worst performance ratings.
A new performance evaluation system is also in place at Walldorf-based software company SAP, as reported by Handelsblatt in March. After years without such evaluations, the "performance culture" long called for by CEO Christian Klein is to be introduced. According to the report, there will also be a category for employees with a "need for improvement" in performance as well as plans with guidelines on how improvements are to be implemented.
(axk)
