Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000, expects few takers

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentMicrosoft offered buyouts to about sixty thousand employees on Monday, and it expects only about three thousand to take it.

2. 

   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentJoining us is Galen Thistlewood, chief retention officer at Brightwell Staffing Partners. Galen, an offer that almost nobody is supposed to accept.

3. 

   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentIs that a good offer?

4. GT

   Galen ThistlewoodYes, it's a wonderful offer. For the record, the best offers are the ones people admire and then politely leave in the drawer.

5. GT

   Galen ThistlewoodLook at this badge, from a job I left voluntarily.

6. 

   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentMicrosoft's own spokesperson says an earlier early retirement offer got thirty percent of eight thousand six hundred eligible people.

7. 

   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentThey don't expect anywhere close to that this time.

8. GT

   Galen ThistlewoodThat's the point. For the record, thirty percent is a crowd, and nobody wants a crowd at the exit.

9. GT

   Galen ThistlewoodAlthough, for the record, I'd say a crowd at the exit is healthy.

10. 

    Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentOkay, so which one is it, then?

11. GT

    Galen ThistlewoodBoth. The company says other firms that ran similar offers saw five to six percent leave.

12. GT

    Galen ThistlewoodSo the offer is a loyalty test, and everyone who declines passes it. Nobody tells them the grade, which is the beauty of it.

13. GT

    Galen ThistlewoodThey decide in early December and leave December thirty-first.

14. 

    Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentAmy Coleman, the chief people officer, wrote that the Voluntary Exit Offer is new for them.

15. 

    Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentSo it's a new test, and the grade is still pending.

16. GT

    Galen ThistlewoodRight, and for the record, I have never been offered one.

17. GT

    Galen ThistlewoodI've been offered four, and I've turned down all four. Please don't tell my employer how many that is.

18. 

    Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentSixty thousand got the offer, and you're the only one who's been trying to leave a job on camera for ten minutes.