Picture. / THEPR

[ESG Communication by Joo Beom Park].
Focus on DE&I for a true sense of belonging – Microsoft’s Inclusion is Innovation

Committed to fostering a diverse workplace…started hiring for autism in 2015, expanded to include neurodiversity
Adding sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and mixed race to employee self-identification options in 2022

THEPR=ParkJooBum ｜ Black, LGBTQ, disabled, military, Asian, Indian, Latinx, women, and families…. Often the targets of hate, discrimination, and exclusion, they are the heroes of Microsoft’s (microsoft.com, NASDAQ: MSFT) nine Employee Resource Groups.

  These communities play a key role in diversity, sharing their experiences and cultures, inspiring each other and developing inclusive technologies that empower future generations.

  As a global company that puts innovation at the forefront of its business, Microsoft believes that recruiting employees from diverse backgrounds, understanding their backgrounds, and fostering an environment where they can communicate effectively is key to our success.

  We actively build and attract diverse communities because we believe in the power of change and growth that comes from combining people’s diverse experiences and perspectives.

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Neurodiversity Recruitment Program

  Microsoft is proactive in recruiting and hiring talented neurodiverse individuals with customized hiring processes.

  Traditional paper applications, traditional job interviews with open-ended and ambiguous questions, and social interactions can be difficult for neurodiverse people to navigate, and they don’t help us get a true sense of their skills. We focus on assessing the skills needed for the role, and we create a relaxed schedule and a comfortable atmosphere.

  For example, we recognize that new data technology work often requires a mix of improvisational, logical, visual, detail-oriented, and hyper-focused thinking styles that lead to innovation, so we focus on building collaborative teams that combine different brain types, information processing models, and perspectives, rather than individual team members who excel.

  Qualities and skills are assessed during the four-day recruitment process with programmatic activities set in the world of the video game Minecraft.

  Working in small groups, customized challenges are designed to give candidates the opportunity to collaborate with each other to demonstrate communication skills, teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership, while practicing workability and drawing out their strengths.

  We also provided mock interviews and real-time feedback to help candidates prepare for interviews, and access to job coaches, mentors, and other support during final interviews and training.

  Through this carefully designed neurodiversity recruitment program, we successfully hired nearly 200 employees between 2013 and 2022.

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*Please note this is a Korean article

Source: THEPR