4 ms·

They are right to be mad, but Nadella did cite “the labor market” as one factor in the pay freeze. That’s another way of saying “we won’t pay you more because w

They are right to be mad, but Nadella did cite “the labor market” as one factor in the pay freeze. That’s another way of saying “we won’t pay you more because we don’t need to” At the end of the day I don’t think the justification or excuse is important. It’s a “vote with your feet” scenario.

wlesieutre 3y ago
Even if they think their employees couldn't find more money somewhere else, "We had a great year and you get an effective pay cut due to inflation" isn't going to inspire people to work hard even if they don't quit over it.
- paxys 3y ago
  Microsoft doesn't really have a "work hard" culture to begin with. The company simply owns a money faucet, and 200K+ employees are around to watch it and make sure nothing goes wrong.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    If the engineers are slacking off, who will build their replacement calculator app with a button that transfers your calculator session to the bing search web calculator? In Edge of course, regardless of what your default web browser setting is. They have a lot of bing integrations that need building across all of their money faucet divisions.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
> At the end of the day I don’t think the justification or excuse is important. It’s a “vote with your feet” scenario. I agree with this entirely. A business like Microsoft's is always a money-grab competition between shareholders, customers, non-executive employees, and executives. I can't recall a single occurrence (in my experience) that management's rhetoric to employees was a substitute for cash, stock, and/or a contract. In fact, that rhetoric would just sour me on management, because I take it as evidence that they're playing employees for fools. If you want employees to invest in the company's future, offer stock, not platitudes.
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > If you want employees to invest in the company's future, offer stock, not platitudes. And Microsoft, just like the other big tech firms, do make equity an important part of compensation, don’t they? https://www.cordantwealth.com/microsoft/full-guide-to-microsoft-rsus/ https://www.cordantwealth.com/microsoft/full-guide-to-micros...
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
If you can vote with your feet, which is the whole justification for the pay freeze, because it’s hard to walk right now. Doesn’t say much for loyalty later when the labor market tightens again.
- seti0Cha 3y ago
  The best people can pretty much always vote with their feet. MS may not see significantly higher attrition, but they may still see attrition of significance. I hope so, for all the employees' sakes.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Even programmers that aren't 10X can vote with their feet. The job market isn't bad if you look outside of FAANG, SV, and the Microsofts of the world.
mathattack 3y ago
That’s exactly it. They won’t raise salaries if Google and Microsoft aren’t in a rush to hire their top engineers anymore. They will when those companies are. Companies rarely pay based on contribution. They pay based on what it takes to keep someone from hiring you away.
- SkyPuncher 3y ago
  Everything works against the market. The price of anything must be higher than the cost to produce, but the market value has little to do with margin
hedora 3y ago
I get the impression the labor market is fine. Companies that have instituted mandatory work from home are seeing attrition way above forecasts, and are uniformly missing their hiring targets by 20-30%. This seems like a perfectly good market for voting with your feet.
- christophilus 3y ago
  > Companies that have instituted mandatory work from home are seeing attrition way above forecasts Do you mean mandatory work from office?
- spamizbad 3y ago
  This hasn't been my experience. If anything, there seems to be way less churn - especially among WFH companies. At my company, they were hoping there would be more natural attrition and there wasn't, so they're having managers try and and cull 5% of engineers.

wlesieutre 3y ago

Even if they think their employees couldn't find more money somewhere else, "We had a great year and you get an effective pay cut due to inflation" isn't going to inspire people to work hard even if they don't quit over it.

paxys 3y ago
Microsoft doesn't really have a "work hard" culture to begin with. The company simply owns a money faucet, and 200K+ employees are around to watch it and make sure nothing goes wrong.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  If the engineers are slacking off, who will build their replacement calculator app with a button that transfers your calculator session to the bing search web calculator? In Edge of course, regardless of what your default web browser setting is. They have a lot of bing integrations that need building across all of their money faucet divisions.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

> At the end of the day I don’t think the justification or excuse is important. It’s a “vote with your feet” scenario. I agree with this entirely. A business like Microsoft's is always a money-grab competition between shareholders, customers, non-executive employees, and executives. I can't recall a single occurrence (in my experience) that management's rhetoric to employees was a substitute for cash, stock, and/or a contract. In fact, that rhetoric would just sour me on management, because I take it as evidence that they're playing employees for fools. If you want employees to invest in the company's future, offer stock, not platitudes.

andsoitis 3y ago
> If you want employees to invest in the company's future, offer stock, not platitudes. And Microsoft, just like the other big tech firms, do make equity an important part of compensation, don’t they? https://www.cordantwealth.com/microsoft/full-guide-to-microsoft-rsus/ https://www.cordantwealth.com/microsoft/full-guide-to-micros...

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

If you can vote with your feet, which is the whole justification for the pay freeze, because it’s hard to walk right now. Doesn’t say much for loyalty later when the labor market tightens again.

seti0Cha 3y ago
The best people can pretty much always vote with their feet. MS may not see significantly higher attrition, but they may still see attrition of significance. I hope so, for all the employees' sakes.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Even programmers that aren't 10X can vote with their feet. The job market isn't bad if you look outside of FAANG, SV, and the Microsofts of the world.

mathattack 3y ago

That’s exactly it. They won’t raise salaries if Google and Microsoft aren’t in a rush to hire their top engineers anymore. They will when those companies are. Companies rarely pay based on contribution. They pay based on what it takes to keep someone from hiring you away.

SkyPuncher 3y ago
Everything works against the market. The price of anything must be higher than the cost to produce, but the market value has little to do with margin

hedora 3y ago

I get the impression the labor market is fine. Companies that have instituted mandatory work from home are seeing attrition way above forecasts, and are uniformly missing their hiring targets by 20-30%. This seems like a perfectly good market for voting with your feet.

christophilus 3y ago
> Companies that have instituted mandatory work from home are seeing attrition way above forecasts Do you mean mandatory work from office?
spamizbad 3y ago
This hasn't been my experience. If anything, there seems to be way less churn - especially among WFH companies. At my company, they were hoping there would be more natural attrition and there wasn't, so they're having managers try and and cull 5% of engineers.