The reality of software development in a huge company like Microsoft (It employs more than 100000 people) is that a substantial portion of your work involves days of boredom punctuated by hours of tedium. You basically spend your time in an isolated office writing code and sitting in meetings during which you participate in looking for and evaluating hundreds of bugs and potential bugs. Yet Microsoft has no problem in finding and retaining software programmers. Their programmers work for long hours and are obsessed on the final goal. From the day new employees begin working at Microsoft they know they are special and that their employer is special. New hires all have one thing in common they're smart. The company prides itself on putting all recruits through a grueling "interview loop", during which they confront a lot of brain teasers by future colleagues to see how well they think. Only the best and the brightest survive to become employees. The company does this because Microsofties truly believe that their company is special. For instance, it has a tolerance for nonconformity. But the underlying theme that unites all microsofties is the belief that the firm has a manifested destiny to change the world. No discussion of employee life at Microsoft would be complete without mentioning the company's lucrative stock option program. Microsoft created more millionaire employees faster than any company in American history-more than 10000 by the late -1990's. While the company is certainly more than a place to get rich, executives still realize that there are other things which also matters .One former manager claims that the HR department actually kept a running chart of employees satisfaction versus the company's stock price .By the spring of 2008 with the world in a recession, stock prices down and the growth for Microsoft products slowing, it wasn't so clear what was driving its employees to continue the companies dominance of the software industry. Q: Analyse Microsoft's employee related policies and provide inputs to the Microsoft management to modify and innovate on its motivation practices in line with the changing times so that it can continue to be the market leader.