RSSWill Microsoft cost cuts spare coffee and other perks?
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published January 20, 2009, 4:55 PM
Microsoft's earnings report on Thursday is expected to go hand-in-hand with delays in building construction, plus possible job layoffs. But employee perks (including a Starbucks hot coffee program) look likely to survive.
Times are getting tougher, even at Microsoft. In a recent review of its financial costs, Microsoft figured out it could save $88 million in fiscal year 2010 by getting rid of perks such as a Starbucks hot beverage program ($1 million), food subsidies ($8 million), and a campus shuttle ($14 million), wrote Jeff Tartakoff, a blogger for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Tartakoff obtained the cost breakout on Microsoft's perks by getting hold of an internal PowerPoint presentation. Other items on the list include a towel service ($1 million), catering ($12 million), free beverages ($20 million), and a service dubbed "The Connector" ($13 million) which drives employees to and from work and home.
He cited an unnamed "person familiar with the situation" as saying that Microsoft has now decided not to actually implement the perks reductions.
But Tartakoff didn't rule out the possibility that rumored job layoffs will really happen at Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft only added 380 employees in November, as opposed to about 1,000 in November.
Moreover, Microsoft is definitely set to delay most of its planned campus expansion program, according to the blogger.
In a separate costs review, Microsoft determined it could save about $82 million in capital expenditures by delaying construction of all new buildings on its Redmond, Washington campus, with the exception of one building, and by not renewing some of its leases when they run out this year and next.
When a company starts doing this sort of thing you know that they're in trouble....
Score: -3
|*laughing*
Gawd, you're a walking joke, aren't you?
Quick: Tell us it's the Year of The Linux Desktop!
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|What, no TV/computer monitor initiatives at CES?
Wasn't that the big thing ~10 years ago? Being able to surf the net on your TV?
And no web access enabled skateboards?
Oh no!
LOL!
Score: -1
|Doing what the employees want is a horrible business decision.
They need to find cost saving measures, to prevent having to cut jobs. Employees will never be willing to give up stuff they are use to.
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|If your employees are intelligent and it is explained to them in detail what the company is up against there is no reason to automatically assume the employees will forgo reason in preference to a few simple perks.
Why do you assume all employees are greedy, entitled, ...oh, wait....
Yeah, you're probably right. :)
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|I'd be stunned if they cut The Connector; it's a pretty high-profile green initiative here in Rain City, where our mass-transit infrastructure is seriously lagging our population growth. (It's more of a private bus route than a work-to-home shuttle, but you get the idea.) I understand there may be some tax breaks involved with The Connector -- probably more than with towel service in any case.
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|In fact, Microsoft only added 380 employees in November, as opposed to about 1,000 in November.
Is that first "November" supposed to be "December"?
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|Or perhaps the previous November.
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|MS would be smart to see what their employees want. Lots of perks they could get rid of, but what are the most valuable to the morale of their workforce and what are just a waste of money? In the end people just want to keep their and their coworkers jobs.
Score: -1
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