Microsoft omits key salary question from employee survey results

Over the years, one question in Microsoft’s internal employee survey has served as a reliable pressure gauge. He asked if employees felt they were getting a “Good understanding at Microsoftt,” is defined asA reasonable balance between what I contribute to Microsoft and what I get in return.” When scores drop low enough, the company responded with a significant pay rise.

When Microsoft released the results of its latest employee sentiment survey, the question was nowhere to be found in the main report. Also, as employees noted, it was not a question of trust in the company’s management. Employees took to an internal message board to ask why According to Business Insiderwho views copies of comments.

“Could you please clarify if the question has been deleted and why,“One employee wrote in a post that garnered more than 200 likes. Another responded with a meme from A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth!“

Official explanation

“Microsoft employee”Chief of Staff Hearing“replied that the questions in the internal forum were not deleted. They were simply asked in different polls, sent to subgroups of employees, “we can cover more topics without extending the duration of the survey,” according to the answer Approved by Microsoft.

The explanation did not go well. “good understanding” question has historically been reported as a headline metric. Regardless of the methodological rationale, burying it in a subgroup survey removes a number that the entire company can point to when they feel compensation is inadequate.

This figure has a record. After low and declining scores on the question in 2022, Microsoft has announced salary increases in all companies and increased stock awards. By 2023, the mood has changed: the company froze salariesIt cut 10,000 jobs and diverted resources to artificial intelligence.

A request that does not match the room

Results from a wider survey of 71% of employees and nearly 265,000 comments painted a largely positive picture. Employees reported being engaged with their teams, energized at work, and aligned with the Microsoft culture. The strongest item with a score of 88 was “I prioritize solving security problems in my role”. According to HR Grapevine.

But some employees said the results didn’t match what they were seeing elsewhere within the company. “Employees seem to have no concerns about the company,” one wrote in a comment with over 70 thumbs-up reactions,”but in every public forum, AMA, petition, etc. thousands of Microsoft employees are employed by the Israeli military, ICE, US military, etc. expresses concerns about contracts with.”

The disconnect between survey data and lived experience is not unique to Microsoft. But in a company that spent last year The US offers voluntary retirement to 7% of the workforcetightening performance expectations and Pouring tens of billions into AI infrastructurespace is especially marked.

Microsoft prefers not to answer the question of compensation

Under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has invested more than $80 billion in AI data centers and computing capacity. It spent 37.5 billion dollars in capital expenditures in one quarter. Nadella described the company’s more than 220,000 employees as a “huge disadvantage” in the AI ​​race.

This framework tells employees something specific about where they sit in the company’s priorities. It’s hard to misread the message when a survey question designed to measure whether employees are adequately compensated is no longer communicated to the entire company.

In the technology industrythe pattern is the same: record revenues, record AI spending, and the workforce being asked to do more with less certainty of what they will get in return. Microsoft still “good understanding” question somewhere, in some survey, to some subgroups of employees. to which he replied.