Inside Business: Microsoft’s former VP of HR Shares 4 Things He Will Never Do As An Employee

As a human resource vice president, Chris Williams has encountered many different behaviour of employees while he was working at Microsoft. He found some few things which has brought him concerns, so he provided his own output based on what he learned as lessons.

Here are four of the things that he mentioned that he will never do as an employee:

Expecting or Offering Company Loyalty

Personal loyalty or company loyalty are actually two different things. He was sure that in today’s case that companies do not really award loyalty. It is because there are many employees who keeps on moving jobs that it is difficult to do so. This applies to both individual and also the company itself. Even if the employee has been there for quite a long time with the company, it is never certain that the loyalty remain the same and it probably has been ‘eroded’ over the years.

Employees should keep in mind to not put any expectations on the company such as receiving seniority reward, promoted due to longevity or even worse, expecting the company to save you from an unemployment while at the same time, a lot of layoffs has been happening. However, if employees want to stay longer to understand the company and the job position better, it should be for a personal gain and not expecting for a reward. The loyalty between employee and the company will always be a non-mutual relationship. An employee should not hold back if they find a better role at some other company.

He added that expecting or offering loyalty to company will only lead to disappointments. Companies will always treat employees as they are doing the businesses. It was never personal. He also added “You should never be more loyal to a company than it is to you”.

Asking the boss for a raise

Employees asking for an increase in salary is another mistake that should not be done. Since the company sees everything as doing businesses, it must be also be profitable to them and not only to the employees. Chris said that employees should present what value an employee can bring to the company. Employees can do this by collecting all of the job output, the ability, revenue that has been generated, savings and many other things as long as there is a clear value exchange. However, employees should never talk about the current market value, how much other people gets or whether the employee has a family to support. When an employee presents all of the data to the boss, this shows a sign of strength and pride of the contributions that has been made. From the data presented, employees can have a proper discussion with the boss on how much of a return of a share the company can give fairly.

Making idle threats

Whether it is empty threats or empty promises, both can gives the impression that someone mean what they say, especially on a working environment. He said that a threat that has no intention of not carrying it out should not be done. This is because they take your words as not empty. Hence, the company is very likely to accept the challenges or actions that has been mentioned.

The former VP said employees should not do these three situation examples of threats. One is to threaten the company to leave without other job that an employee does not particularly like. This means that once the employee receive a job whether it is likable or not, the employee should accept it. The second is to threaten the company to take legal action. The reason is employees who made empty threats usually do not know what that means. Then, the third one is to threaten them in many kind of ways. Threats should be made when an employee really means it and is willing to take the risks.

Asking for a help without preparations

Mindlessly asking for a help without seeking for possible solutions to the problems beforehand and not knowing what is the actual root cause of the problem can be a huge mistake, unless there is no way to find one. This can be seen as someone who is very unprepared and this do not quite give a good impression. It is forgivable is the employee missed out a few things. A way to fix this is to understand and asses the situation carefully and examine the problem in detail. When an employee faces a burdensome situation, everything must be documented such as saving emails, taking notes, taking a screenshot of the situation and jot down the situation clearly. This way, employees are able to ask for help clearly.

Chris said that he does not like a particular line used by managers who used to say that employees should not to them with problem but with solutions. He believes that an employee should come asking for a help if they have a problem, but it must be address clearly and importantly, with preparations. When doing this, the employee may have figured out the way out before even trying to find a help.