Microsoft Motivates

Microsoft is one of the largest and most profitable companies and it is this way for a reason. Microsoft adheres to 4 basic principles to keep their thousands of employees motivated from the bottom all the way to the top. The first of these principles is they establish an "Action Plan". The Action Plan consists of setting goals for employees that they need to strive to achieve and also reward these employees once they reach their goals. By doing this they demonstrate both internal and external motivation for the employees which we learned about in class. The second principle that Microsoft follows is to have their rewards be creative. Monetary rewards are nice but they don't motivate everyone. This is why it is important to find what motivates your employees. Also it is important that you decide what the reward is beforehand so that you never miss an opportunity to encourage good work. Third on the list, is to give rewards that show that you (the manager) had a direct hand in it. For this Microsoft tries to make sure that managers give their own "personal touches" to the rewards. By doing this Microsoft both allows more creativity from the managers as well as making the employees believe that they are being cared for on an individual level. The last principle states, that group rewards can be beneficial as well. Awarding a group for a good performance can be one way that the company shows that group work is just as beneficial to the company as individual work can be.

Michael Ziegler