After Microsoft released findings from its latest employee surveys, some workers took to an internal message board to question the results, according to comments viewed by Business Insider.
These employees wondered whether the surveyed had been watered-down, especially when it comes to issues around compensation at the software giant.
For years, one question in particular served as a barometer for employee sentiment. It asked whether employees felt they were getting a “good deal at Microsoft (i.e. there is a reasonable balance between what I contribute to Microsoft and what I get in return).”
In previous years, after low and declining responses to this question Microsoft announced significant pay raises to address growing dissatisfaction with compensation and stop employees from leaving to competitors including Amazon.
Since then, there’s been a sea change across the tech industry, with big job cuts and more pressure on employees to perform. Microsoft has embraced this new approach, too, and froze salaries the year after the raises.
When Microsoft released the results of its latest employee surveys recently, the question about getting a good deal at Microsoft was excluded, according to a copy of the results viewed by Business Insider.
Some employees took to the company’s internal message board to ask what was up.
“Can you please provide clarity on whether or not the question has been removed and why,” one Microsoft employee wrote in a comment with more than 200 “thumbs up” reactions.
“I don’t think they value getting an answer to a question they already know the answer to,” another employee commented, with a meme of the famous line from the movie A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!”
Other employees queried the apparent omission of another question about whether staff have confidence in company leadership.
A person whose title is “Head of Employee Listening” responded that the company received questions about where to find those specific survey questions and said, “Those questions are still being asked and acted on; they just show up in different surveys based on how our listening programs are designed.”
The good deal question, for example, was included but sent only to a subset of employees “so we can cover more topics without increasing survey length for employees,” this person added. Microsoft confirmed this person’s response and did not provide further comment.
The debate over Microsoft’s survey results reflects broader tensions inside a company undergoing rapid change. Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and data centers while simultaneously tightening employee performance expectations and cutting costs.
Another employee questioned the results overall, which they said didn’t seem to track with employee sentiment in other forums like “Ask Me Anything” meetings with executives.
“Really confusing results,” the employee wrote in a comment with more than 70 “thumbs up” reactions. “It seems like employees essentially have zero concerns about the company, but in every single public forum, AMA, petition, etc., thousands of employees are raising concerns about Microsoft’s contracts with the Israeli military, ICE, US military, and so on, with ethical questions being by far the most upvoted discussion topics.”
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