Term Paper on "Organizing Function of Management Microsoft Corporation Human"

Term Paper 4 pages (1592 words) Sources: 3 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Organizing Function of Management

Microsoft Corporation Human Resources and Technology

The intent of this paper is to evaluate the organizing function of management as it relates to Microsoft Corporations' Human Resources and Information Technologies (it) strategies internally. Organizing the many resources in each of these two areas within Microsoft to attain an optimal level of efficiency and effectiveness requires the company to stay focused on existing, proven processes while striving to improve those areas showing the need for improvement. As the markets Microsoft competes in rapidly change, so too must the processes the company uses to attain efficiency and effectiveness in the organizing of Human Resources and it internally. The challenge is to first stay vigilant to the changing market conditions the company faces, and second, to stay attuned to the changing needs of all the departments in Microsoft for both Human Resources and it support. Within Microsoft the need for both of these functional departments to serve the many of other departments within the company requires a highly synchronized set of organizing processes that give each department both the human resource and it support they need. The intent of this paper is to describe how Microsoft uses the organizing function of management to ensure responsive service from Human Resources and it organizations to the remainder of the company, achieving effectiveness of solutions delivered and efficiency of response.

Overview of Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a global leader in the development and marketing of consumer, personal productivity, and small business and enterprise software applications and employs 71,000 professional worldwide. The company focuses on the development, manufacturing, and support of a very wide variety of devices for computing. The company's core business is its personal productivity applications including Microsoft Office. In addition, the continued growth of distributed computing environments, business solutions applications and platforms, software development tools and server-based operating systems, the company has the most diverse software product portfolio in the industry. In addition to these specific businesses the company also entered the gaming market with the Xbox video game console and games, in addition to already having a line of PC games and PC peripherals. Microsoft has also made several investments in online initiatives including their own extensive website and online applications area called MSN, and the move into Software-as-a-Service applications in their OnDemand initiative in their business solutions area. Microsoft also spends more on Research and Development of new technologies than any other software company in existence.

The Organizing Function of Management in Human Resources at Microsoft

Microsoft's culture is one that stresses individual responsibility and accountability of development work and seeks out employees that thrive on the immediacy of generating and providing valuable information. The organizing function of management with Human Resources has as its goal the synchronizing of the many services the department delivers in addition to the continual monitoring of how to deliver these services more effectively and with less time taken to deliver them, or the efficiency with which they are delivered as well. The organizing function is primarily centered on how to deliver a set of services to other departments within the company that is integrated across all of Human Resources and precisely meets the needs of the departments needing their assistance. The cultural values of any company over time reflect its core values (Schein 1983), and Microsoft promulgates their cultural values through the hiring practices used.

Microsoft monitors how effective their Human Resources strategies are by regularly having departments rate each others' performance. In other words Microsoft seeks to quantify how effective their Human Resources department is in meeting internal departments' needs. The efficiency or speed at which the company meets the needs of internal departments is also measured and published on an internal dashboard that is posted on the Human Resources Intranet site, only viewed by employees in that department.

The extensive research completed by French and Raven (1959) provide a useful framework by which to analyze the impact of how effective the organizing function of management is in enabling Microsoft's Human Resources organization on the strategic direction of the company. Human Resources is one of the core strategic departments of Microsoft, as programming talent is critical to the company's long-term viability and future growth. From French & Raven's research it's clear that for the organizing function of management within Microsoft to be effective, an understanding of the various sources of organizational power is critical, as this is a key indicator of how effective the department can be in meeting the diverse needs of the company's many departments. Using the French and Raven constructs, it is clear that the role of expert power consistently comes to the forefront of Microsoft's Human Resources' contributory role to the Microsoft culture and creates a high level of credibility internally for the organizing function of management in that department as well.

Due to the major contributions of Human Resources in staffing Microsoft's development, marketing, sales and services teams, expert power is one of the most powerful social forces in the Microsoft culture. Making the recruiting process as effective as possible is the most important strategic objective that the Human Resources department contributes to. In accomplishing this goal, the organizing function of management within the department concentrates on recruiters for college graduates and also working professionals. The efficiency of recruiting new employees to Microsoft is a major part of the strategic goal, as programming areas require new college graduates with the latest skills in addition to industry veterans to assist with getting new applications built. The balance of effectiveness of hiring the right person for the right job in conjunction with the need for handling the recruitment process and making it as efficient as possible are two critical areas of focus within the company.

The Organizing Function of Management in Information Technologies in Microsoft

The organizing function of management within the it department of Microsoft concentrates on internal departments' satisfaction with the it services delivered, while at the same time continually scans the it industry to see which new developments will be even more effective in meeting the needs of their internal customers, or departments. As a core part of the organizing function of management within the it department, service requests for support are segmented by the level of severity and needed internal skill to solve them. This segmentation of internal department requests is a highly efficient approach to resolving the majority of quickly-solvable technical problems. The it department also relies heavily on the organizing function of management to create escalation paths so that the more complex, time-consuming problems can be solved as effectively as possible given the time devoted to finding a solution. Further, the it Department also concentrates on how to create a synchronized, highly coordinated approach to introducing the company's own operating systems throughout the Microsoft departments globally. The internal it department for example handled the upgrades of all systems inside Microsoft to Windows XP Professional and later, Windows XP Vista. This took an inordinately high level of synchronization and coordination throughout the organization. The organizing function of management specifically was relied on to ensure cross-functional teams within Microsoft's it departments could be coordinated with to handle the launch of their own operating systems internally, and their installation worldwide on employee's PCs.

Microsoft's internal culture also highly values candid and often direct feedback, and the organizing function of management within the it department has often been called upon by the product divisions within the company to act as test sites for Microsoft's own software. In the Microsoft culture, this is called "Eating your own dog food" and has created a very high level of product ownership for new products both in the development organizations and also within Microsoft's it department. The it department has a strong sense of ownership as they are contributing to… READ MORE

How to Reference "Organizing Function of Management Microsoft Corporation Human" Term Paper in a Bibliography

Related Term Papers:

Organizing Function of Management Essay

Organizing Function of Management at Microsoft

The management teams at Microsoft concentrate on how to gain the greatest levels of productivity and profitability from the resources they have, as many… read more

Essay 2 pages (696 words) Sources: 2 Style: APA Topic: Management / Organizations

---

Vendor Management IT Management Process Research Paper

Vendor Management

IT management process under the Vendor management system is a recent trend used by various organizations. Many organizations are using this centralized program to control their staffing. According… read more

Research Paper 15 pages (4065 words) Sources: 15 Topic: Management / Organizations

---

Human Resources Development Annotated Bibliography

Bundy, R. "Changing role of human resources has vast implications." Wichita Business Journal, Wichita: July 11, 1997.

During the past ten years a number of companies in American have really… read more

Annotated Bibliography 20 pages (7658 words) Sources: 0 Topic: Management / Organizations

---

Portfolio Management Software for E-Government and How to Secure the Connection Capstone Project

initiatives require bold solutions, and the Abu Dhabi Plan for 2030 represents an excellent opportunity to provide timely and cost-effective solutions that will help achieve the visionary goals of the… read more

Capstone Project 38 pages (10456 words) Sources: 70 Topic: Management / Organizations

---

Managing Information Technology Term Paper

Managing Information Technology - Set of Four Reports

Knowledge Management in Health Care

Managing, organizing and making available to healthcare professionals the many types of content that comprise knowledge management… read more

Term Paper 13 pages (6095 words) Sources: 10 Style: Harvard Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>