LISA BRUMMEL: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

In late January we announced plans to eliminate up to 5,000 jobs at Microsoft. Today’s announcement is part of that ongoing process.

As managers this certainly presents challenges for you and your organizations, whether you are experiencing the eliminations directly or indirectly. As I did in January, I ask you to support your colleagues, peers, and leadership teams as we work through the steps necessary to get jobs, people, and projects aligned in the company.

I want to emphasize the importance of your role as managers today. We have asked leaders across the company to minimize the amount of e-mail sent today, as employees told us the e-mail volume in January was distracting.

As a result, leaders have agreed to streamline their e-mail communications. Outside the US, we ask that you defer to communications by local leaders and not send or forward U.S. announcements to international teammates.

Rather than sending e-mail, we encourage you to meet with your employees face-to-face or via Live Meeting, where possible, to address their questions.To help you do this, we have provided resources for you on HRWeb.

One learning we took from January’s announcement is that managers who reviewed the materials found them to be useful and effective and had a more positive experience than those who did not. I strongly encourage you to review this and to ask others to do the same.

Thank you for your support.
Lisa