top company to work for ...

[y2k1981]

I've been looking for some links on this for you to see for yourselves, but I came up with nothing. Anyway, I live in Ireland. Yesterday, one of the daily broadsheets announced the best 50 companys to work for in Ireland in 2003 from the point of view of the employee. guess who was #1? That's right, Microsoft.

So, I guess say what you will about Bill Gates, he and Microsfot do make alot of money, but evidenly they're ploughting it back into the people who matter. Still doesn't change my opinion of some of MS's products, but I just thougth that I'd let everybody know. Anybody hear of MS getting the similar awards in any other countries?

 

[Bullschmidt]

Wow, number 1 in Ireland. Good to hear that they're good to their own at least...

Best regards,
J. Paul Schmidt - Freelance ASP Web Developer

http://www.Bullschmidt.com

- Creating "dynamic" Web pages that read and write from databases...

 

[gcunning]

This may just mean that MS employees are more afraid to badmouth their boss/company than others.
I bet Hitlers henchmen would give him resounding reviews too.
Customers and competitors are a much less biased judge of doing business with a company. In my experience the customers feel cheated more often than not, and the number of lawsuits should say something about what the competition thinks of them.

 

[MDXer]

Having been involved with a custom development with MSC staff which was not a delightful experience, and also having been to the MS Campus in Bellevue and spent time and worked with a number of people there I can, I believe honestly say Microsoft does treat their employees better than many companies. I am not suprised that they are rated so high by their employees. In my opinion people need to seperate the company Microsoft from Bill Gates the person.

Comments like:
I bet Hitlers henchmen would give him resounding reviews too.

Just go to demonstrate peoples inability to develop a valid arguement for their thoughts and beliefs. Since the above can be refuted by many history books, interviews and accounts that show just the opposite.

"Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!"
- Daffy Duck

 

[skiflyer]

Holy smokes... say what you will about Microsoft, but it often gets very high ratings in the US by its employees as well. Probably doesn't hurt that with stock options they made alot of millionares.

I can't believe the first two responses... do some research.


-Rob

 

[y2k1981]

yeah, I agree. gcunning, why on earth do you think the employees would be afraid to badmouth M$? Besides, if they were begin treated badly, they just wouldn't nominate the company in the first place, you'd hardly go out of your way to say your company was the best to work for if they treated you badly now would you ?

 

[gcunning]

My point was that MS behaves badly, the opinion of the people who work for it don't really count to me. I care more about what a customer or competitor thinks of a company.
MS has used very heavy handed, and many believe unethical, and illegal tactics in business. I don't think someone who would work for them is a good judge of opinon.

I am sure you could find some of Hitlers henchmen who hated him, that was not the point. MS like Hitler belived in towing the party line, disenters were not welcome to comment. In this vein, I would not care what his henchmen said, there are expected to say positive things. Hitlers henchmen, while he was in power at least, were benefiting very greatly from his actions, weither they agreed with them or not, and regarless of what they claimed later at the trials, they aided and assisted in his actions.

Look at politics for example, any political party is going to vote highly for their party and say good things about them.
When I hear someone give a compliment to someone on the other side of the fence, it has a lot more weight to me.

Back to the point of employees, so what if they are happy? They are making gobs of money from their actions of course they will think MS is great, they don't however have the perspective to appreciate the damage MS could be doing to society and the marketplace in general, as they are some of the main beneficiaries of these actions. I would be impressed if they said the same thing, when paid poorly.

Again I will restate what I thought was a very valid and cosice opinion:
Customers and competitors are a much less biased judge of doing business with a company. In my experience the customers feel cheated more often than not, and the number of lawsuits should say something about what the competition thinks of them.

 

[MDXer]

Well considering the thread is based upon the following


the best 50 companys to work for in Ireland in 2003 from the point of view of the employee


How would customers or compititers know what it is like working for Microsoft. Yes customer opinion does affect corporate image, but I give little credence to compititors as their opinions are biased and often motivated by their own needs. With the topic being based upon Employee Opinion Your arguements are without merit in the cotext of the discussion put forth. Had the discussion been about corporate self image or precieved public opinion the your arguements would have some basis, although I doubt any other company would have operated differently had they been in microsofts position.

"Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!"
- Daffy Duck

 

[y2k1981]

>> I don't think someone who would work for them is a good judge of opinon.

I honestly don't know how you can say that. The people that work for M$ are no different than you or I, just because they work for Microsoft doesn't mean they loose their sense of judgement. I'd certainly work for them given the chance

 

[skiflyer]

That's nice, but no one is talking about doing business with a company, they're talking about working for a company.

Do you think Customers and competitors are a much less biased judge of working for a company?

I'm not even going to reply to the Hitler part... but as far as speaking out for your company because you enjoy it. This may or may not play into some survey's, but do you honestly believe a company gets to number 1 or even in the top 10 just because people don't want to badmouth? I mean come on, most of these survey's come out as anon. submissions anyway. Not to mention you seem to be contradicting yourself, saying that the people of course are going to give it a high rating because they're making gobs of money, and then saying they won't badmouth it because they're afraid of reprisal.

Employee satisfaction is about all sorts of things, from pay to security to nicely painted walls to competent managers to a million other things, to pretend it's all about money is to put your head in the sand, to pretend money doesn't play a big role, is to put your head in the sand.

Long and short, a conversation about employee satisfaction is a conversation about employee satisfaction, why are you bringing in topics of marketplace moves into this? Those filter into employee satisfication no doubt, but they don't negate it just because you say so.

-Rob

 

[gcunning]

This is the place "the water cooler" to state opinions right?
The topic was "employees say micrsoft is great", my opinion who cares?
I don't take a competitors word for gold. If you have a company, (say MS) who makes false claims about their competition (remeber fake errors about DR DOS?) Then their claims don't hold a lot of water. When you see multiple companies in mulitple different feilds accusing and even suing MS over their unethical business practices you can see a better consenus of what that company is really like.
My original point, though maybe poorly stated, was that weither its Hitler, or Rockerfeller, when you have power the people under you are going to be on your side, its called toadying. Just becuase the employees are too worried, or too afraid of loosing their gravy train, or both, they aren't going to bad mouth MS. I think you are all jumping to conclusions that I am comparing Gates to Hitler, some simliarities maybe, but I would not pretend to say they were the same. Some of the social manipulation tactics are very simlar though, as are some of the procedures internally.
When MS introduces false evidence in a US court and gets away with being Caught in the act and not punished, something is wrong. You should not be able to drive your competition out of busine by any means other than offering a better product, and MS goes further than trying to do just that.

I think that money is not everything is exactly what I am saying. MS employees, wether due to vaction time, money etc, it all boils down to compensation. They are happy with MS because they feel well compensated. That doesn't say a thing to me about wether its really a good company to work for. I care too much about the social impact to society to work for a company that I feel has business practices that are detremental to fair and open competition that made our country great.
Not to mention for a company that is so great to work for, they sure have a lot of turnover in upper management.
Just because they plough money back to the people who help them make it doesn't make it great to work for.


And I do question the judgement of MS employees, I understand that the majority of them are probably hard working decent people. However MS's actions have been pretty well publicized, and anyone in the know in the tech community ought to have some idea they behave badly.
I think that any business could act heavyhanded like MS and try to kill off competition, usually the SEC would step in, but the DOJ and SEC are currently turning a very blind eye to thier behavior. Someone who works for MS in my opinion is either uneducated about their business practices, or is more interesed in getting their compensation regardless of the cost to others.
Come on people how much negative public opinion has to build up before we start seeing a problem? At one point if you typed "evil" into google, Microsoft was the #1 hit. Granted this is from some too rabid rhetoric, but it still shows a common view about their actions.

 

[MDXer]

gcunning you are still missing the point. The discussion is was began in regards to


the best 50 companys to work for in Ireland in 2003 from the point of view of the employee


So unless you have some information to prove your point that MS employees are saying it is good when they believe otherwise, you again have missed the point of this discussion. Compititer and Customer impressions are valid issues to discuss they aren't what this thread is based upon.

I suggest if you really want to express your blatant hatred for Microsoft that you start a thread for that purpose.

"Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!"
- Daffy Duck

 

[gcunning]

Gee... and I thought I had given several good examples of poor behaviour on their part that I thought made them a bad employer to work for.
"blatant hatred"
Try blantant support.
I was unaware topic threads in this section were kept so to task and to not comment on aspects of ones statements.

"So, I guess say what you will about Bill Gates, he and Microsfot do make alot of money, but evidenly they're ploughting it back into the people who matter. Still doesn't change my opinion of some of MS's products, but I just thougth that I'd let everybody know."

I'd say my opininon were regarding this statement.
You think MS is the top compnay to work for, I don't. Pretty simple. We can disagree without you attacking my right to state my opinons here and calling my arguments basless without supporting your statements.

 

[venkman]

I am an enthusiastic supporter of linux and open source software, and I do believe Microsoft has used a monopoly to ufairly hurt competition which in turn has hurt computer users. Not suprisingly, I've never worked for Microsoft, but I know several people who have, and from everything I've heard it is a great place to work for. They're paid very well. As developers and Program Managers, they are shielded much better from corporate marketing nonsense than I've seen at companies I've worked for. Plus, believe it or not (and this one always confuses me) Microsoft employs a lot of very smart people. While their end products may not be the best at times, which is probably due to pressure to release too quickly instead of qa test, the environment itself is very stimulating intellectually. On a flip side, I often wonder if working at Microsoft is so good because it's a monopoly.

gcunning, I'm sorry man, you're just flat out wrong. I can understand you not wanting to give Microsoft credit based on things they've done to others, but the one group of people they seem to treat well is their full time employees (and interestingly enough not their part-timers and consultants as past news has shown).

You can make the case that working for an unethical company has it's drawbacks in terms of employee satisfaction, but every Microsoft person I've ever talked to has definitely drank the cool-aid when it comes to that. They either believe MS is not a monopoly or they believe it is a necessary one. Either way, I haven't met very many MS people who have ethical issues with working there. And to defend them for a moment, there are plenty of techies, especially on this site, who do not work for Microsoft, but they love the company also.

-Venkman

 

[jdognz]

In New Zealand in 2001 Microsoft was also voted the best company to work for ...so I guess worldwide they have a good reputation with their staff... id work for them any day

in reply to venkman I dont think microsofts postion has hurt the end user at all ..it may have hurt many other companies pockets but end users generally get a good deal

 

[venkman]

jdognz-

My point was not to start another debate on Microsoft's comptitive business practices. You can read a number of other posts if you'd like to see points on both sides for that. I was just trying to point out that I am not a Microsoft sympathiser, but I still believe it is probably a very good place to work.

-Venkman

 

[Tracey]

personally, im not a fan of microsoft, but i would be very keen to work for someone that provided:

On-site Gym
On-site Daycare
1 caf / 2 offices

and more.....

sounds like eutopia

Tracey
Remember... True happiness is not getting what you want...

Its wanting what you have got!