14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft announced in July that a total of 18,000 employees would be fired as a result of the Nokia Devices and Services unit takeover, and according to a new report, a new round of layoffs should begin this week.
Company CEO Satya Nadella said when announcing the layoffs that people would be let go in waves that would span over the next six months, which means that by the end of the year, the firm should complete its restructuring process.
Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley writes that September 18 is the D-Day for a new pack of employees who are going to be let go by the company, as Nadella and the other executives are looking to bring this reorganization to an end as soon as possible.
According to internal sources, the company managed to lay off a total of 13,000 employees in the first wave, so only 5,000 people could be affected by this new round.
“Fewer layers of management”
Nadella said in the public announcement rolled out on July 17 that Microsoft needed to focus more on getting things done, so simplifying the internal organigram was the right way to go.
As a result, the CEO wanted what he called “fewer layers of management” to streamline the process of developing a products and bringing it to the market.
“We will simplify the way we work to drive greater accountability, become more agile and move faster,” he said.
“As part of modernizing our engineering processes the expectations we have from each of our disciplines will change. In addition, we plan to have fewer layers of management, both top down and sideways, to accelerate the flow of information and decision making. This includes flattening organizations and increasing the span of control of people managers.”
All divisions affected by layoffs
While Microsoft hasn’t clearly specified the divisions that are impacted by the layoffs, sources from within the company have explained that pretty much every single unit lost staff, including the Windows group.
We’ve heard that as far as Windows is concerned, Microsoft wants to get rid of some testers and ask managers to learn new skills that would help accelerate the development process of new OS versions and update.
While nobody can guarantee that this strategy would work, Nadella claims that it’s critical to simplify everything within the company, while also making all groups work together in a much more effective way. That’s already happening with several devisions that are cooperating on a number of projects, but Nadella wants the same approach to be used by everyone within the company.