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Microsoft Employees Happier Under Satya Nadella as Compared to Steve Ballmer

Microsoft Employees Happier Under Satya Nadella as Compared to Steve Ballmer

By Sanket Vijayasarathy | Updated: 19 October 2016 18:22 IST

Highlights

Satya Nadella had an approval rating of 88 percent at the end of 2015
Ex-CEO Steve Ballmer had a poor approval rating with just 51 percent
LinkedIn reportedly became less happy after it was bought by Microsoft

If you thought working at Microsoft would lead to happiness, you are absolutely right. According a report by analyst firm UBS, employees at Microsoft are happier than their counterparts at Apple for the first time since UBS began tracking employee sentiment in 2012.

Business Insider reports that UBS takes data from Glassdoor to track everything from CEO approval and career opportunities to overall outlook for business.

"The overall results are supportive of our thesis that MSFT has once again become a destination for top tech talent, with annual ratings consistently improving and ahead of peers," writes UBS.

Current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is also popular among his employees, according to the report, which puts his approval rating at 88 percent at the end of 2015. Ex-CEO Steve Ballmer, on the other hand had a poor approval rating with just 51 percent.

Microsoft is performing 10 percentage points higher in employee satisfaction than the industry standard, beating Apple, the UBS report says.

While the source of happiness is not known, one can point to Microsoft's recent moves under Nadella as a key reason. The company has been more liberal in its offerings, providing services and tools to its competitors like Apple and Google. Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform now also supports Linux.

(Also see: How Satya Nadella Rebooted Microsoft's Corporate Culture)

Another reason behind the cheeriness could be the rise in the company's share price since Ballmer stepped down as CEO, with Microsoft letting go of failing projects such as Lumia, some Surface tablets, among others.

(Also see: Microsoft's Move Away From Making Smartphones Actually Makes a Lot of Sense)

Meanwhile, LinkedIn reportedly became less happy after it was bought by Microsoft in a $26.2 billion deal earlier in 2016. The same report mentions that LinkedIn had 17 points higher satisfaction levels than the average with a 95 percent approval rating for CEO Jeff Weiner. After the deal, it went down to 85 percent approval rating for Weiner.

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