5 ways Microsoft keeps employees engaged

The software behemoth boosts its message internally through engagement. The tactics also lifted morale at Skype after Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition of the phone platform.

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Having trouble keeping employees engaged? Or, harder yet, are you struggling to win over the distrustful employees of an acquisition?

You’re not alone. Microsoft has restructured its communications to engage its 90,000-strong workforce worldwide in the social era, says Caitlin Duffy, managing editor of the MSW employee portal.

The software behemoth also had to win over Skype’s tempest-tossed employees after Microsoft bought the phone and videoconference company for $8.5 billion in 2011.

Skype’s employees were smarting from being sold three times and working under five CEOs in the previous six years, says Tobin Burgess, who works for Microsoft in the mergers and acquisitions group.

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