The history of Microsoft can be traced back to April 1975, when William H. Gates (Gates) and Paul Allen (Allen) founded the company at Albuquerque, New Mexico, US. As its first project, the company developed a programming language, Altair BASIC, an improved version of BASIC, for the Altair 8800...
The Problems
During the late 1990s, Microsoft grew rapidly in size. Elements of its work culture which had been popular during its initial years of inception such as a challenging work environment, culture of risk taking, and innovation were no longer encouraged within the company...
The Measures Taken
After assuming her new role at Microsoft, Brummel changed the approach toward managing HR at Microsoft. The previous HR approach was reportedly more like a 'one size fits all' model in which all the employees had to follow the same system...
The Benefits Reaped
With the changes in the HR management practices, Microsoft was able to boost employees' morale. The employee attrition rate went down to 8.3 percent in 2007 from 10 percent in 2005. Some analysts attributed this success to Brummel's attitude toward dealing with the problems...