Leaked Microsoft poll shows fewer employees have confidence in leadership | Hacker News Reader

Leaked Microsoft poll shows fewer employees have confidence in leadership

businessinsider.com

67 pointsredbell53 comments

Layoffs. Bonuses cut. Raises and promos frozen. No shit a random employee survey is going to trend downward.

Ask the outside world on the other hand and they’ll say Microsoft leadership is doing a stellar job. The stock market definitely reflects it.

Only those on the outside not involved with Windows desktop development with agree with a stellar job description.

Those still involved in Windows desktop, will assert that they are running like headless chickens, no clue which UI framework to invest, downgraded the development experience back to pre-.NET days, no longer hold the golden rule of backwards compatibility, and have teams of a ridiculous tiny size, only capable of bug fixing and very small feature development.

So most likely any employee involved in Windows desktop development, that doesn't drink the Kool Aid of COM/C++, will also not vote with much thrust on their business unit future.

Is this why Teams has steadily gone from useful to useless? It used to just work, and now it's a source of frustration multiple times a day with bugs and delays and features being lost in the new version. So annoying.

Teams started as Electron app, and now is in the process of being released as a Webview based app.

Zero desktop stuff.

I've been using it since over two years and it has never worked.

> Those still involved in Windows desktop, will assert that they are running like headless chickens

I was wondering what was going on there because Windows is so incredibly bad in so many ways. I need my computer for productivity - not consumption - and Windows really seems good at getting in the way a lot of time. If I could jump back to using a Mac for work I would do it in a heartbeat.

Ignore all the talk about WinUI 3.0 being the future, and check the issues on the following repos:

https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml

https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsAppSDK

https://github.com/microsoft/cppwinrt

https://github.com/microsoft/CsWinRT

So the people making more money because the employees are making less money are happy, and that means the leadership is doing well.

Money means too much to too many people.

Money means everything in a world where safety nets are fraught with disdain.

Even in a world with safety nets, like in Europe, you still need decent money to fund a first world lifestyle, which you don't get from your safety nets, and I'm not talking about a huge house and a garage full of sports cars. Safety nets are there to prevent you from becoming homeless that's it, so you'll definitely want a to work a good job and not rely on your safety nets. I don't think Microsoft employees in the US are at risk of becoming homeless.

Sure, but lack of safety nets can definitely turn you homeless OR force you to forego crucial medical interventions (in the US at least). For example, my daughter has some developmental delays she might be able to grow out of with the proper therapies. These therapies cost thousands of dollars a month so when my wife and I talk about what the best thing to do for our daughter is, we usually land on "making more money, getting that next promotion", because one of us staying home with the kid makes a number of things become unaffordable.

I take it back, I didn't know it was that bad in the US. I guess I only speak from my bubble as a single, low paid SW dev in the EU. Having kids that need expensive medical expenses is something I didn't think about, because one, I don't have kids, and two, it's normal here to have most critical medical expenses covered, although, even here I still have plenty out of pocket costs due to how thinly stretched the public health system is, so you get the care you need for free, IF you happen to be dying right NOW, otherwise it could mean suffering for months long waits and/or out of pocket fees. Still better than the US probably.

And I hate that the European system is being stretched thin because lawmakers here are now using it as an example for why socialized medicine is unsustainable :\

All systems are unsustainable if the money coming in, is less than the money going out, so the main problem is maths and economics, not private or public.

While public care systems don't need to turn a profit, but they also can't run on a huge deficit because you can't have it bankrupt the state, you still need money for education, defense, infrastructure, etc. so while there's no pressure to turn a profit, there's a huge pressure to cut costs wherever possible, while at the same time a huge political pressure to keep the voters happy who want their cake and to eat it too.

Both systems have their pros and cons but both can be made to work if managed right and have money or fail if managed poorly and run out of money. IIRC Singapore has a well thought out privately funded healthcare and safety net system.

I’m on my phone or I’d link you to one of a slew of reports stating that the cost savings that come with universal healthcare.

Let’s be real here, that philosophy of sustainability has no place in this discourse and can easily be rebutted with CBO reports from say, the Obamacare bill.

The US government and by extension its citizens is angel investing a military complex at the tune of 1 trillion a year with no return. I’m not saying there aren’t any benefits to it but healthcare and other safety nets like food stamps are not only a drop in the bucket but yield very tangible long term benefits…

You can’t put a price on having a healthy adult population. And for that your people need to eat during those crucial years (I’m going on a tangent here) and it helps if their teeth are rotting out of their mouths.

It’s right there in the article’s TLDR: “Microsoft closed the poll before it paused raises and cut bonuses and stock awards.”

>Ask the outside world on the other hand and they’ll say Microsoft leadership is doing a stellar job.

I doubt a majority of Windows users are happy with the direction Microsoft is taking.

The industry has changed immensely. What used to be 5 year software engineering careers in one company has changed to 1.5-w years.

Some of it is because of employers undervaluing existing employees. Some of it is because technology is changing too fast, so compensation is higher elsewhere.

But mostly, it is because of layers and layers and layers of management that stunt engineers with BS OKRs and performance ratings.

Literally none of the tech management is driving new products, better services, better ideas and yet, they control employees. They steer entire teams into crises. Why would anyone have confidence in them?

In a battlefield, would soldiers have more confidence in commanders who understand the battlefield or would they have more confidence in "pseudo-leaders" who say BS and use performance ratings to fire people?

https://archive.ph/m8pf7

Just look at Windows 10, it explains everything.

Actually. Windows 11 explains everything.

It started with Windows 8.

I'll go against the flow and say Windows 8 was the last time they tried something new and bold.

That’s not a contradiction. However, they largely failed in that, and one might say that it was predictable.

Most Windows users don’t care about “new and bold”. They care about stuff working, having a consistent UI, stuff not changing each year, not having their preferences reset by updates, and not being subjected to ads and telemetry.

I honestly can't remember any improvements from 7 to 11, except more ads and more config screens for the same options, making everything super confusing.

I miss the old Windows that would just stay outta my way... now every time I have to reinstall Windows or boot up a fresh VM, there's always a "wtf is this" moment when you see all the ads and Bing and Cortana spam at first startup.

I wish the VSCode team would take over Windows and trim the fat lol

They already kind of did.

"Azure OS" with Web applications.

That is why Windows desktop has become a mess.

I'm going to skip over telemetry and config resetting, I think everyone hates these.

But as for dazzling new changes, the enterprise market probably doesn't love it but it's candy for consumers, judging from the hype around Apple's announcements. They can definitely drive sales. There are downsides to having the same product in both positions, it appears.

But Microsoft often flubs the execution whoever the changes are for.

> They can definitely drive sales.

Consumers don’t buy Windows though for the most part (they get it for free), it’s enterprises that do. Consumers also definitely are annoyed by Windows becoming stuffed with ads, UI becoming less intuitive and stuff constantly changing, their default browser being hijacked by Edge, etc.

By Windows 10, .NET Native and C++/CX with WinRT, were looking cool as COM evolution with modern tooling.

Then they had to screw it all up.

Does no one remember Vista?

Or ME come to think of it.

Vista, the OS which still looks pretty modern today, introduced sensible UAC features, and modern backup and restore features?

People love to shit on Vista and I’ve honestly never got it. Windows 7, ever glorified, was basically Windows Vista again. MS’s mistake was allowing Vista to be installed on bad hardware. Driver support got resolved. Vista after SP1 was fine.

Those had quality issues, but didn’t introduce a controversial new UI paradigm or tried to turn the OS into an eternal-beta SaaS.

We have present day nightmares to think about, thank you.

I think it is quite expected after layoffs / bonuses pause, right?

I don't think this is due to beliefs that e.g strategy is bad or something?

or is it?

> Notably, Microsoft closed the annual poll called "Employee Signals" before announcing it would pause raises and cut bonuses and stock awards this year, a decision some employees have criticized in questions to company leaders viewed by Insider.

I thought they had pauses in previous year too, nvm then

https://archive.ph/2023.06.23-204806/https://www.businessins...

Directly related:

Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35889709

Do employees need a confidence in leadership? Employment, like all trade, is basically an adversarial, zero-sum relationship. I don't need to have a confidence in a counterparty in a trade - on the contrary, I'd prefer them to be a gullible fool.

> I don't need to have a confidence in a counterparty in a trade - on the contrary, I'd prefer them to be a gullible fool.

Gullible fools may pay you over the odds once or twice, but won’t survive in a competitive market. They’ll go bust, because too many other savvy players are rinsing them.

Does it matter? Employment is an increasingly short term relationship too. I don't care if my employer survives other than they survive long enough to get into a lifeboat.

Yet I work in a company where the average tenure on my team is over a decade....

This extreme turn over is bad for both employers and employees, not sure how to fix it as it seems both employers and employee have terrible attitudes as to the cause, and neither actually want to fix it in general

The cause is simple: Extreme turnovers are a consequence of inequality. Wage growth has not kept up with workers' productivity and employees aren't stupid enough not to notice this.

If the employee feels like he's being taken for a fool, he'll try his luck somewhere else. If they see the CEO announcing record profits but his salary is stagnating you can bet your ass he'll try to leave. If the CEO and execs are getting a platinum trim on their yachts but you can't afford a new car, you bet it'll ruffle some feathers.

The fix is simple: have workers' pay track increases in profits and productivity but companies don't want to do it, they want the increases in productivity to go to investors instead of workers

While that for sure is part of it, Wage Compression has been an issue for as long as there has been employment. You may want to relabel that as "inequality" but it does not change the fact that internal raises have always been less than market increases.

I think there are other factors at play, like companies being very quick to pull the layoff lever these days, quick the lower headcount in bad times, and VERY VERY slow to increase headcount when it is needed. This instability i believe it a huge factor

Also reductions in other compensation not just wages (Time Off, Health Care) and often inflexibility with the employers over all. Just to name a few.

>and VERY VERY slow to increase headcount when it is needed

Meta doubled its headcount in under 2 years. Same with other big tech companies. How is that "very very slow"?

Well aside from the fact that not everything revolves around "big tech companies" and the vast majority of people (even here on HN) do not work for big tech...

Big tech has been laying off like crazy, so I am unclear what your point is even in the context of big tech.

I can see this point of view from someone who is young and single with no anchor anywhere. Not everyone wants to be a digital nomad and/or be constantly on edge and mercenary with their career.

You can do that, but it comes at the cost of no wage increases. If you can’t leave, you have no leverage.

I could go into consulting or start my own business – the highs would be way higher, but the risk of lower lows even worse. On the other end of the spectrum, I could accept a 50%+ wage cut in exchange for an exceptionally stable job & a defined benefit pension.

Even in the private sector my risk can vary: hyper aggressive startup that pays in equity, long-tenured industrial that has an OK salary and 401k.

I'm a shade closer to the startup risk profile, but that's just me. Plenty of employees are entirely willing to stay on the conservative end of the scale & give up chances for big returns - heck, some even give up anything beyond marginal cost of living adjustments! - in exchange for working at a stable company that is slow to hire, slow to fire. But that's an exchange ... if company leadership isn't trusted, good employees won't take that deal because bad leadership = an unstable employer.

>>Employment, like all trade, is basically an adversarial, zero-sum relationship

that is a very poor way to look at trade in general, and employment.

If I am looking to hire a HVAC company, or Auto mechanic, or anything else I do not want them to be "a gullible fool" nor should I be a the "a gullible fool"

This idea that every trade has a winner and a loser is moronic

Not a winner or loser. It's just that, if I get you to lower your price by 10%, then it's more money staying in my pocket and less money going to your pocket. And similarly, if you convince me that your shoddy work is good enough, then you have more time left to do other work, instead of spending it on me. Both scenarios demonstrate the zero-sum aspect of paid work.

No that is not demonstrating that at all.

Reid Hoffman is still on Microsoft’s board despite all his Epstein dealings, so yeah…

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