Microsoft’s Customer Service and Support Organization (CSS) is a key customer facing organization.  In fact, CSS touches over a half a billion customers and partners per year via phone, email, chat and through our online support web properties. How we attract, develop and retain our top talent are critical differentiators which we leverage in the highly competitive support employment marketplace.

Over the past two years, Microsoft and the CSS organization have focused on the creation and communication of key programs and processes centered on the value, retention and development of our people.  This paper covers the following topics:

1. Microsoft’s structured approach to People
2. Discussion of the Career Development Program that is leveraged corporate wide
3. Discussion of the Specific Talent Management Programs leveraged across the CSS Organization
4. Discussion of the Reward Opportunities for the CSS Employees

Microsoft’s structured approach to People was introduced in the spring of 2005.  This program has five main elements:

1. Career Development
2. Management Excellence
3. Reward Opportunity
4. Enhanced Workplace
5. Performance Management

We will touch on three of the five elements in today’s conversation (Career Development, Management Excellence and Reward Opportunity). 

Career Development

Career Development is an important factor when it comes to job satisfaction for the Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) workforce.  Based on continuous feedback from employees via manager conversations and the annual Microsoft Employee Survey process, Microsoft has created a company-wide structured approach to career development called the Career Model. 

For the CSS organization, this was a year-long partnership and project with Microsoft’s Corporate HR team.  During this process, strategic professions in relationship to the industry were created to align all Microsoft full-time employees.  A few examples of industry professions Microsoft has developed include:  Customer Service and Support, Service Delivery, Operations, etc.  Within each profession, key disciplines were established to help structure the different roles within a profession.  For the Customer Service and Support profession, Microsoft aligned 82% of the organization to specific disciplines, while the other 18% align to other professions throughout the company.  The CSS profession was mapped to three disciplines overall. The three disciplines are:  Support Engineer, Support Account Management and Supportability Program Manager.  For each of these three disciplines, Microsoft documented career stage profiles, competencies and experiences to be leveraged by its employees.

Career Stage Profiles (CSPs) help the organization identify and differentiate its employees as they mature in their career.  Each profession is mapped to 1-6 career stage profiles. An example would be an employee recently out of college may start out in the discipline at Career Stage 1.  As they grow in their career over the first 1-2 years, they are likely to move to Career Stage 3.  This is accomplished via a structured promotional process.
 
Key competencies have been identified for each discipline.  Generally each discipline has five to eight core competencies that employees are measured against.  A few examples of competencies we have in CSS include:  Confidence, Impact and Influence, Cross Boundary Collaboration, Technical Expertise, etc.   The last component of the model is career experiences.  Experiences consist of key activities or learnings that employees can engage in to expand their career or prepare themselves for the next steps in their careers.

For the CSS organization, the Career Model process has enabled the organization  to better understand the full WW capabilities that they have within the organization.  One key leverage point that Microsoft has is a full view of the talent pool of the organization.  Based on this information, they can target the grow opportunities that they need to focus on to prepare the organization for future aspirations.

Talent Management

Within the CSS organization, Microsoft has provided an opportunity for its top talent to participate in one of three programs.  The three programs include:

1. Executive Leadership Program (ELDP)
2. Exceptional Potential Program (EXPO)
3. Technical Leadership Program (TLP)

Executive Leadership Program (ELDP)
The Executive Leadership Program was designed and launched specifically for the CSS Organization in FY07.  The objective of this program is to strengthen the CSS leadership pipeline by developing top talent from  the director-level and above community into executive-level leaders. CSS is doing this by providing focused development experiences that sharpen leadership capabilities and build executive maturity. 

This is a one year program and participants are nominated for membership.  This year, CSS selected fifteen WW participants.  Throughout the year, the participants have taken part in outside training, executive coaching and mentoring, etc.  The average cost per participant is $15,000 which doesn’t include their time away from their primary roles. For the FY08 program, Microsoft anticipates the number of members and program details to remain at fairly consistent levels compared to FY07.

Exceptional Potential (EXPO)
The EXPO program was introduced in 2005 and is used by a number of groups within Microsoft who tailor the content of the program.  The vision of this program is to strengthen the leadership pipeline that will fill key future roles both inside and outside of the CSS organization within Microsoft. Additionally, it helps Microsoft retain and develop top talent via focused development experiences, and offers participants broad exposure to Microsoft businesses and its executives. 

This program is focused on the low-to-mid level mangers. The majority of these managers for the CSS organization are front-line mangers or managers of managers.  Currently the program focuses participant selection on four percent of the eligible population.  For CSS Microsoft currently has approximately 120 worldwide participants.  This program offers a general structure that focuses on 1-2 key learning events which are then supplemented by activities identified by the hosting organization.  In addition to the core program, the Americas CSS organization supplements this learning with additional opportunities such as information sharing and exposure to executive leaders throughout the year.  For FY08, the one key element Microsoft hopes to accomplish in CSS is to drive the supplemental activities as opportunities for participants in other regions and countries around the world.

Technical Leadership Program (TLP)
The Technical Leadership Program was designed and launched in FY07.  This two-year program represents the top 2.5% of CSS’ technical population and is focused on its support engineers.  The vision of this program is to develop and re-recruit the best technical people and ensure they are providing maximum impact to the business by investing in a program that will offer a unique development opportunity. Top Technical individual contributors should be able to support and communicate the CSS mission, vision, goals and strategy.  Throughout the program, participants focus on the following during week-long programs and quarterly events:

• Deeper business knowledge
• Influencing others
• Leadership skills
• Increased self awareness

The three Talent Management Programs discussed are focused on retaining and developing top talent across the WW CSS organization.  As you begin to build similar programs for your businesses, a few key areas to consider are the following:

• Secure an executive sponsor early on with a clear vision for your program
• Determine length of program
• Secure an appropriate budget
• Define and communicate participant selection criteria
• Decide if participants are rotational or non-rotational
• Predict and communicate time away from business

Reward Opportunity

When Microsoft thinks of reward opportunities, they try to  think very broadly.  Reward opportunity can range from monetary, completion of an outstanding contribution, nomination to a particular program, movie tickets, time off, etc.  In the CSS Organization, Microsoft has utilized many opportunities to reward its WW employees. Beyond leveraging key career development programs, CSS also participates in a structured recognition programs.

The framework for rewards programs considers various levels at which employees can be rewarded. At the bottom of the framework is an employee’s base compensation. From there, Microsoft identifies rewards and recognition in four categories: achievers, leaders, champions and individual excellence.

Each type of reward is based on the value of the activity within the category. Meeting daily goals for a week on service levels might warrant movie tickets or a pizza party for a team. These would be “achievers” who meet role-based short term results.

“Leaders” are role models who exceed regional or functional objectives. One program Microsoft uses is called “Great People Great Performance” which is a worldwide award that helps recognize people who exemplify the customer service and support mission with great results. The reward is quarterly and is valued at $200 US. From these quarterly winners, a small number are selected to win the Annual award, which is a group trip to an exotic destination valued at $10,000-$15,000 per winner. These annual winners fall into the Champion and individual Excellence categories.

Microsoft also uses other programs which provide monetary rewards for employees who are within the Champion and Excellence categories. Both individuals and teams can be rewarded with an average payout of 4-8% of their annual base compensation. Some of these programs are promoted vigorously for nominations throughout the various levels of the customer service and support organization and others, such as our Gold Star programs, are discretionary and recipients are nominated by their direct managers.

In addition, during the past year Microsoft allocated additional morale funding to the CSS WW Leadership team to leverage in recognizing all WW employees for their day-to-day contributions.  By allowing the allocation, the leadership team had the opportunity to accommodate any regional needs.

In Closing

I appreciate the opportunity to share the great programs that Microsoft has within the CSS organization.  I hope you are able to leverage some of this information to help enable your company to attract, develop and retain top talent.

About Vicky Ford………………………………………………………………
Vicky Ford is senior director of Microsoft customer service and support, where she leads teams that focus on programs to help develop and retain employees. These programs include the Microsoft Career Model Framework, Leadership Development Programs for front to mid level manager, Executive Leadership Program and the Technical Leadership Program.

Vicky holds a B.S. from the College of Education at Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio).