Great Places to Work

brucelynn — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:47:47 GMT

Microsoft has just won the #1 spot in the 2009 Europe’s Great Places to Work survey. President Jean Philippe Courtois called out a number of New World of Work initiatives that really showcased Microsoft’s exploitation of technology to enable dramatically new approaches to business...

“Our new office in the Netherlands is a flagship example of how we are creating a New World of Work with employees. The Amsterdam office is no longer a 9am-5pm destination – rather it is a ‘meeting place’ for when people need to come together. Underpinning the roll out of new working practices is Microsoft’s own Unified Communications technology. Equipped with a mobile phone, laptop and UC software, employees have the freedom to work anywhere and anytime that suits them. In addition, with UC Microsoft is saving more than $212 million annually in reduced travel and better productivity.”

The commendation cited a Belgian staffer’s commented on the impact of Microsoft’s ‘New World of Work’ vision...

“The New World of Work gives us complete flexibility to determine in a creative way how to do our projects and when we want to work. This gives me energy every day. It allows me to treat my family the way I want. It gives me the opportunity to do a number of things regarding my health and sporting activities. The way things are delegated allows me to work in a flexible way and to combine my job at Microsoft with my tasks as a mother.”

Community Productivity

brucelynn — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:04:00 GMT

Microsoft has been talking about the ‘New World of Work’ for several years now and as time and conditions have progressed so has the vision. An updated presentation came from Katherine Randolph, Josh Henretig and Nicole Brown in a partner blogcast called ‘Enabling Telework Through Unified Communications. Good for Business. Better for the Earth’.

I particularly liked Katherine’s opening line, “The office is no longer a physical place, but more an environment where they can collaborate whether they are face to face or whether they are remote.”

For me the NWOW represents a natural progression in Microsoft’s ‘productivity’ vision. At the outset, Microsoft was all about ‘personal productivity’ and the cornerstone product was Office. But the ‘XP’ generation introduced capabilities that were less about the tool itself and how an individual user used it and more about how the software was used in a context of a team or organisation. At this point, the vision of ‘productivity’ really expanded to one of ‘organisational’ productivity and paralleled the rise of Microsoft tools as an Enterprise standard not just on the desktop, but also on the server with products like Exchange, Sharepoint and SQL Server.

Now I think Microsoft’s vision is expanding even beyond the walls of the organistion. The benefits to the new approaches to work accrue not just to the bottom line of the P&L, but also to the broader social welfare, environment and economy. Sort of a ‘Community Productivity’ if you will.

Above and below are a few of my favourite slides from the presentation (click on the slide graphic to see expanded, easier to read version)...

Dynamic Work : New World of Work

Great Places to Work

Community Productivity