In the past few months, employees at various US tech companies have received more vacation days, financial bonuses, or other forms of recognition for their good work since the pandemic. Now Microsoft has announced that it will pay its employees around the world $ 1,500 each. That works out to around $ 200 million.
• Bonus payment is not only valid for the USA, but for the whole world
• Certain employees do not receive a bonus
• In addition to recognition for good work, there could be another reason
As the news portal CNBC reports, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gave his employees five extra vacation days a few months ago. With this, he probably shows his appreciation for their efforts and expresses his thanks for keeping companies running despite all the changes since the pandemic. Now “many” of the employees around the world will also receive a financial COVID bonus, according to CNBC.
In total, the COVID bonus costs Microsoft around $ 200 million
This was first reported by the portal The Verge, which claims to have been able to view an internal Microsoft memo to all employees at the beginning of the month. The memo announced that every employee worldwide who started working for the company before March 31, 2021 will receive a corona bonus of US $ 1,500. The Verge calculates that Microsoft, with its 175,500 employees, will have to raise a total of around 200 million US dollars for the bonus payment. Although this is a lot of money, it corresponds to the profit that the company makes within just under two days – and therefore does not mean too much of a financial cut for the tech giant.
The bonus is to be paid out in July and August
Excluded from the regulation are all those who have the title of “Corporate Vice President” or who are even higher in the company hierarchy. The employees of Microsoft’s subsidiaries GitHub, LinkedIn and Zenimax will probably not receive any bonus either.
The internal memo stated more precisely: “[The bonus] is a recognition of the unique and challenging financial year that Microsoft has just concluded”. This also makes it clear that Microsoft does not want to declare the pandemic over with the bonus payment, but rather wants to honor the good financial year.
Cathleen Hogan, Chief People Officer at Microsoft, told CNBC that the employees will probably receive their bonus in the months of July and August.
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“Great Resignation” – Bonus more than just a token of appreciation?
Microsoft is currently not the only US tech company that gives its employees a bonus – according to The Verge, Amazon , Tesla and Facebook also have it already distributed bonuses. CNBC explains that the big corporations are probably not only showing this generosity out of charity and gratitude, but rather because of fears that their employees could migrate after the pandemic: The job portal Monster had carried out a survey on the subject of job satisfaction and found that around 95 percent of those surveyed are considering changing jobs and 92 percent are even thinking about changing industries. Monster calls this phenomenon “Great Resignation” and could become a problem for large companies. CNBC therefore sees the bonuses more as a cheap way of retaining employees with the big companies.
