Microsoft India President Tells Employees: 'Your Well-Being is Important, Take Breaks'

The President of Microsoft India, Anant Maheshwari, took to social media and put out a friendly reminder to all of Microsoft’s employees. In the tweet sent from his official Twitter account, Maheshwari emphasised the importance of maintaining one’s well-being by reminding employees to take a break from their work to ensure their own health. The tech brass said in the tweet, “Dear @MicrosoftIndia employees, just reminding you to take that break, disengage from work, spend time with your loved ones, and get back to work feeling refreshed and energized. Your wellbeing is important!”

This comes in light of the pandemic and lockdown induced work-from-home situation that employees across the globe find themselves in. Microsoft is leaving nothing to chance in its effort to gain employees’ trust in these trying times.

Anant Maheshwari’s Journey to Microsoft

Maheshwari joined Microsoft in 2016. Prior to this, he was the president of a company called Honeywell India, which had at the time, 15,000 employees. He had joined Honeywell India in 2004 to set up the strategy for the company in India and in 9 months, he was able to launch the electronic security business in India. He eventually became the President of the company in 2014. In total, he had spent more than 12 years with the brand. Before that, he worked as an engagement manager for McKinsey & Company from 1998 to 2004. Currently, Maheshwari has been the President of Microsoft India for almost five years. His responsibilities lie in handling Microsoft’s products, services, and support offerings across the nation.

Everyone Gets a Bonus

The tech giant also rolled out a pandemic bonus for all of its employees according to a report by The Verge. The company is apparently giving out a $1,500 bonus as per an internal memo accessed by The Verge. The reason behind this– it was in recognition of the challenges brought on in this fiscal year.

The reward was announced by the Chief People Officer (CPO) of Microsoft, Kathleen Hogan. It will be applicable for all eligible employees across the world, given that these employees fall below the corporate vice president level and if they started on or before March 31, 2021, as per the report.

This follows a similar trend that big industry giants are doing. Companies such as Facebook and Amazon also issued such bonuses to their employees over the past year. Facebook gave around 45,000 of its employees a bonus of $1,000 each, while Amazon rolled out a cash bonus of $300 for frontline workers.

Since the pandemic began, Microsoft has been able to generate a tremendous amount of revenue thanks to its diversified digital venues due to the increased at-home usage by people stuck in lockdown. Increased laptop usage, Windows usage and Xbox lent to the tech giant’s profit margin. The company has also donated around $98 million of assistance to non-profit organisations in the state of Washington, the report said. Microsoft has further delayed the opening of its physical offices till September of this year.

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