Originally posted by wendigo100
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Reply to: New perks at Microsoft
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Previously on "New perks at Microsoft"
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Originally posted by TheMonkeyThat's not unusual these days. One company I nearly went to work for had 2 networked XBoxes with full size driving seats and plasma screens.
There's loads of, how should I put this, fit ladies here too.
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Originally posted by wendigo100The site is quite nice though, isn't it. It seems bizarre having ranks of X-Boxes available for staff to use though.
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The site is quite nice though, isn't it. It seems bizarre having ranks of X-Boxes available for staff to use though.
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Originally posted by wendigo100I'm at the Reading offices but I haven't noticed any hand-towels there. Perhaps someone p1ssed on them and they were removed.
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I'm at the Reading offices but I haven't noticed any hand-towels there. Perhaps someone p1ssed on them and they were removed.
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I pissed on the hand towels in the Reading offices *does happy dance*
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Never noticed any of this at their Danish operation. They've had free towels in the company showers and a laundry from before M$ bought it. Also the staff restaurants have always been good.
Seeing as I cycle up there and home again, and do like a bit of pie occasionally, I would have noticed any changes.
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New perks at Microsoft
Microsoft plans perks to retain staff
By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: May 20 2006 00:55 | Last updated: May 20 2006 00:55
Microsoft / logoMicrosoft said it would supply free towels in company showers, better food in staff canteens and on-site laundry service in an effort to boost employee morale as it battles for talent with Google and other recent start-ups.
The outbreak of the internet “perks war” is the latest sign of Microsoft’s attempt to keep some of the trappings of a fast-growing Silicon Valley start-up as it takes on more of the characteristics of other large, slower-growing blue chip companies.
Google has become the most visible exponent of Silicon Valley’s entitlement culture, using the free food in its highly rated cafeteria, along with the availability at its campus of services ranging from massages to automobile oil-changes, to help attract and retain workers. The tech companies defend the on-site perks as a way to reward employees who often work long hours and who would otherwise have to leave the premises, making them less efficient.
Microsoft’s decision to offer new employee perks, initially only at its headquarters campus near Seattle but eventually also in other sites around the world, marks a reversal of an earlier, unpopular cost-cutting policy.
A decision to scrap the free towel service two years ago became a lightening rod for employee dissatisfaction. Under Ken DiPietro, who was hired as head of human resources from Dell, a technology company renowned for its low-cost ways, Microsoft abandoned a number of perks, echoing a wider attempt at the time to bring a new and more stringent financial discipline to the software company.
Mr DiPietro was replaced a year ago by Lisa Brummel, an internal appointment that signalled the company’s desire to repair some of the damage to morale. In an internal e-mail to staff earlier this week, Ms Brummel unveiled a number of changes to Microsoft’s compensation system and other management systems.
They include adding 15 per cent to the amount of restricted stock that Microsoft sets aside each year to reward employees. Its decision recently to abandon stock options, a form of compensation that had famously created thousands of “Microsoft Millionaires”, has left it at a disadvantage to Google and other fast-growing companies, which use the incentives liberally to attract talent.
Ms Brummel also said Microsoft would scrap a system that had forced managers to rate a certain number of workers as sub-standard each year, and that it would adjust its compensation system to keep “top talent” at the company.
The new perks, which include a grocery delivery service and “dinners to go from Wolfgang Puck”, a celebrity chef who runs a catering service, “are designed to ease the burden given the hectic pace of life”, Ms Brummel wrote.
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Free towels, ffs? The beatings will continue until the morale improves.Tags: None
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