Microsoft India Today Microsoft India includes Microsoft Corporation's largest R&D centre outside of its headquarters in the US$.$ The company works with the local technology industry and its interests incorporate not only the private sector, but also the Indian government $($Microsoft India, $2012$ in McKenna and Beech, $2014).$

While corporate India experienced significant growth brought about by globalisation after the $1990$s$,$ the economic slowdown following international economic upheaval in late $2008$ subsequently interrupted years of steady growth at Microsoft India $($Pradhan$,2011$ in McKenna and Beech, $2014).$ Among the challenging outcomes were workforce reductions and difficulty holding on to essential and highly$-$trained staff members. Microsoft India's HR strategy had traditionally focused on building organisational capability and strengthening employee engagement to support the growth of the local IT industry.

The uncertainty of the world economy prompted a major overhaul of Microsoft India's HR approach. Joji Sekhon Gill, shortly after taking up the HR director position, initiated a process to reshape the company's HR strategy by introducing new performance$-$management measures and employeeretention practices.

Gill faced a number of challenges, especially in the attempt to align local HR practices to the global business environment. Employee expectations vary greatly among employees of Microsoft worldwide. For example, corporate social responsibility $($CSR$)$ is important to the younger US and European generations, whereas family support remains significantly important to Indian employees.

Building a retention system that delivered value to Microsoft India's employees was difficult. For example, pay for performance still remains a new concept for many Indian workers. In the bureaucratic organisations of pre$-$globalised India, age served as the main criterion for promotions and recruitment. Therefore, Microsoft India HR was forced to re$-$think practices, particularly those related to performance management and how to compensate through financial support for employee's families. Gill identified these needs as specific to India and launched changes to the company's HR approach to retain and motivate their 'talent pool'.

According to Microsoft India's growth model, HR was ultimately expected to improve quality and efficiency despite workforce reductions. The existing performance$-$management system was amended to intensify evaluation and increase performance rewards through revamped compensation packages.

An aim of this was to help workers better understand the performance levels and what they might do to advance. The effort was complicated by a phenomenon known as the 'comparison complex'. This is prevalent among workers in South$-$east Asia as a way in which individual success is measured relative to one's colleagues.

The new transparency model caused a great deal of anxiety and psychologically unsettled the workforce. Measures were introduced to keep performance$-$based rewards and compensation confidential, while the mechanisms of the process were made transparent. Gill commented: 'there is a need for radical change even though that may be taking a risk. Confidentiality of compensation and pure qualification$-$based hiring is the need of the hour' $($in Stuart, $2008).$ Clear communication strategies had to be introduced to explain the rationale and need for particular compensation and hiring policies. At the same time, confidentiality of individual employees' evaluations had to be assured.The aim was to improve the line of sight between employees' contributions and increases in compensation, and a rating system was introduced into the performance reviews. Employees would receive a ranking in the range $1($highest$)$ to $5($lowest$)$ based on managers' assessments. The performance rating is based on three inputs: employee accomplishments relative to predetermined goals or commitments; the behaviour used to achieve these results; and employees' proven capabilities based on long$-$term performance records. The rating is tied to increases in pay, and bonuses and the size of the increases are tied to factors such as job type and discipline.

The approach allowed Microsoft to increase the salaries of those jobs seen as critical to the company and important to retain $($Pradhan$,2011).$ In addition, Microsoft India set up an interactive intranet portal where employees can see the mechanisms by which compensation changes based on the varying performance ratings $($Microsoft India, $2012).$

The re$-$shaped HR strategies at Microsoft India have stabilised the workforce amidst conflicting expectations. The initiative helped the company attract and retain skilled knowledge workers in a competitive and uncertain environment by delivering the highest compensation to the highest performing employees in the most important jobs. $1\mathrm{.}4$ Critically evaluate the extent to which Gill applied an SHRM approach and mention distinct features of SHRM$.$