Microsoft thinks it is failing on workforce diversity year on year. In a bid to change this narrative, the company is now mulling to tie executive bonuses to employee diversity goals.
Satya Nadella's Plan
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, is leading the initiative himself. He was reportedly the one who introduced the plan, which involves the use of diversity goals as factors in determining whether executives would get their full bonuses every year.
"Diversity and inclusion is something you've got to ingrain; you've got to keep talking about the business value; you've got to keep talking about the impact," Gwen Houston, general manager for Global Diversity and Inclusion at Microsoft, told Bloomberg. "That's what Satya has been doing."
Female Decline At Microsoft
Despite the fact that a significant number of Microsoft's top leadership positions are occupied by women, the overall female population within the organization now constitutes 25 percent, falling one percentage point from the figure posted last year.
The decline of the female employee population is largely attributed to the shutdown of Microsoft's Nokia division, which the company is phrasing as a streamlining strategy. But the shutdown entailed the layoff of a huge chunk of female and minority employees.
Organizational Diversity Goals
Existing hiring policies are already guided by overarching diversity goals. These have been credited for a slight shift in the organizational diversity. This is purportedly driven by an increase in female, African-American and Hispanic recruits. However, their collective number did not make any dent on the declining trend.
Nadella seems unhappy about Microsoft's inclusion strategy. Observers are watching the debut of his new policy closely because Microsoft is expected to march to its tune with alacrity.
Nadella has already supported key policies in the past that are aligned with diversity and inclusion. He has been an enthusiastic supporter of an internship program called Explorer, which is part of a hiring strategy spearheaded by experts on women and minority recruitment.
Why Diversity
For those who are wondering why Microsoft is obsessed with diversity and inclusion, there is a prevailing theory that these variables drive the success of companies that rely on innovation to thrive. Microsoft is not the only tech company aggressively pursuing this strategy. Intel has allocated $300 million last year to improve the diversity of its workforce.
Nadella, in his early days as Microsoft's CEO, drew an immense amount of flak for saying that women should just have faith and wait for rewards when asked whether they should ask for equal pay. After apologizing for the snafu, Nadella made it a point to make diversity his priority.
