Microsoft Plans First-Ever Voluntary Employee Buyout (cnbc.com) 37
Microsoft plans to offer voluntary buyouts for the first time. According to CNBC, "about 7% of U.S. employees are eligible," with the program being "available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or higher." Further details will be provided on May 7. From the report: Last year Microsoft removed some costs through multiple rounds of layoffs. As of June 2025, the company had 228,000 employees. "Our hope is that this program gives those eligible the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support," Amy Coleman, Microsoft's executive vice president and chief people officer, wrote in a memo viewed by CNBC.
Additionally, Microsoft is adjusting the way it doles out stock to employees for annual rewards. The company will no longer make managers tie stock directly to cash bonuses. This way, "managers have more flexibility to meaningfully recognize high performance," Coleman wrote. The company is also simplifying the review process for managers, so they can choose from five pay options for employees instead of nine.
Additionally, Microsoft is adjusting the way it doles out stock to employees for annual rewards. The company will no longer make managers tie stock directly to cash bonuses. This way, "managers have more flexibility to meaningfully recognize high performance," Coleman wrote. The company is also simplifying the review process for managers, so they can choose from five pay options for employees instead of nine.
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Laws. This kind of specific application has very big legal limitations in different countries, and different tax implications both for the company and the person buying out their employment. I've seen a company do this globally before. It took them YEARS. Germany especially resulted in a 2 year hold up due to works council negotiations.
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Works councils in Germany have no say in voluntary termination agreements (AufhebungsvertrÃge). The works council has to be given a chance to comment on involuntary terminations (which makes a difference if the terminated person sues) and it negotiates company-wide agreements (Betriebsvereinbarungen).
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They absolutely have a say in literally everything that does not apply to all employees equally. They do not have a say if you offer unified global voluntary termination to the entire workforce, this is not what anyone is talking about doing. MS is getting rid of aging (reads: expensive) staff.
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Please point me to the paragraphs that gives the works council this right.
The case you mentioned might be due to paragraph 112 BetrVG. That paragraph says that the employer and the works council have to agree on a plan (Sozialplan) for what happens with the employees affected by significant restructuring. The works council will try to prevent unfairness towards those that leave the company. Those that stay are not in focus as long as the company can continue to function without those that leave.
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I didn't read the German legislation, but we pay plenty of people to do just that and this is precisely what has come up time and time again. I think they would have made that obvious that we weren't fucking around for a full year for nothing. This is not the first time either. We need to involve works council on all discussion that don't affect all employees equally. Heck just this week I had to submit to their approval a reason why we are not rolling out a specific training course to all technicians in on
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Stop the drama - they are offering buy-outs to older, more expensive employees. NO ONE IS BEING FORCED OUT. You do understand the concept of "voluntary buy-out", don't you?
To be eligible you'd need, say, 25 years on the job and be 45 years old, to make the magic "70" number for age + years of service.
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Stop the drama - they are offering buy-outs to older, more expensive employees. NO ONE IS BEING FORCED OUT. You do understand the concept of "voluntary buy-out", don't you?
To be eligible you'd need, say, 25 years on the job and be 45 years old, to make the magic "70" number for age + years of service.
Buyouts are pretty common. They have a bit of a risk, because older employees who are no longer all that useful are the target group - a fair number of critical employees take the buyout. Happened several times at the place I retired from. Sometimes as a percentage increase in the retirement calculation, or adding service years. It wasn't giving a hunk of cash, but actually was better.
I missed one by a year, but when I was ready to go, the HR ladies provided tips and tricks (strictly above board) to maxi
Microsoft can buy me out (Score:3)
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Hey... I'm cheap. If they give me a lifetime XBox Premium subscription, I'll promise to never badmouth them on Slashdot again!
How big? (Score:2)
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H1-B salary most likely.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/t... [forbes.com]
Getting ahead of the problem (Score:3)
You may pay me $100,000 to never work for you, this way you don't have to lay me off.
Thank you.
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I would hope the buy outs are larger than that. Likely the people that qualify for this due to their age and tenure at the company have a yearly salary larger than 100,000k, Unless they have just been a janitor for the last 40 years, unlikely though since that kind of job is usually subcontracted out these days.
Yeah, I'd expect that most of the eligible people have TCO in the mid-six figures to low seven figures, with salaries $250-500k, annual bonus $50-100kk+ and equity another $250-500k. Since offers need to be at least six months' pay (preferably more) to really make sense for someone who wasn't already about to leave anyway, the number has to be quite a bit higher than $100k.
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I suspect the employees offered the voluntary buy-out have a fair bit of company stock, likely collected over their 20+ years in the company.
If the deal isn't appealing to them, they don't have to volunteer to accept it...
New Definition of Retirement Age. (Score:5, Funny)
"available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or higher."
(Microsoft HR) "Hello. The Boomer Club representing the senior executive bone-us profit margins recently took notice to the fact you've been here 20 years. Since you were 31 years old in fact. Time to retire."
(Senior Director) "Wait, but I'm not ready to retire! And I'm not eligible for retirement benefits even from your own 401k match until 203.."
(Microsoft HR) "Close enough. Time to Alt-Del your active employment status. Don't let the door Ctrl you on the way out."
Re:New Definition of Retirement Age. (Score:5, Informative)
[tik tik tik] - "Hi, I'm Clippy. It looks like you're being sacked. Would you like help transferring your 401k to a personal IRA? I can notify security to give you up to an hours delay before they escort you off the premises!"
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"available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or higher."
... and "about 7% of U.S. employees are eligible" which means that 7% of Microsoft employees have age + Microsoft years that add up to 70+. That's something I would have expected at the old IBM.
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"available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or higher."
(Microsoft HR) "Hello. The Boomer Club representing the senior executive bone-us profit margins recently took notice to the fact you've been here 20 years. Since you were 31 years old in fact. Time to retire."
(Senior Director) "Wait, but I'm not ready to retire! And I'm not eligible for retirement benefits even from your own 401k match until 203.."
(Microsoft HR) "Close enough. Time to Alt-Del your active employment status. Don't let the door Ctrl you on the way out."
Cute how you skip over the "voluntary" part of the buy-out...
Microsoft plans to offer voluntary buyouts for the first time.
Literally the first line in TFS, as well as in the headline for the story, but still somehow you missed it... Interesting.
I hope it doesn't suck (Score:4, Interesting)
Google has offered a couple of rounds of voluntary separation plans (though they didn't age-gate them), but the offers weren't very good. They were great if someone happened to already be in the process of leaving, or just about to retire, but otherwise not so much.
In 2025, the offer was (from memory) 12 weeks of pay plus two weeks per year with the company. I had 14 years, so that would have been 40 weeks for me... which sounds pretty good until you realize that the package was salary only. At big tech companies salary is only about 40% of compensation, 20% is annual bonus and the other 40% is equity (these are approximations; details vary from person to person, but it's roughly in this ballpark). So, effectively, it wasn't 40 weeks of pay, it was 16 weeks. Basically, the offer should be read as 4.8 weeks plus 0.8 weeks per year of tenure. Not nothing, but not nearly enough to motivate me to give up a job until I had another one lined up.
And, of course, they set the offer acceptance timeline too short for people to hear the announcement, find another job, then accept the package. Finding someone to interview you for a job is easy -- I get several recruiters pings every week. But finding a good fit, going through the multiple rounds of interviews and negotiating an offer takes a while.
For someone with less seniority, the structure was even worse. And I hear the 2026 offer was weaker yet; same two weeks per year, but with a smaller base (6 weeks instead of 12, IIRC?).
Anyway, for the sake of the microsofties who are eligible, I hope they get a better offer than I did.
(I ended up leaving Google anyway, so in hindsight I should have taken the money. I landed the new gig in July, and I'd have separated and gotten the payout in May. But at my stage of life I'm not interested in taking risks, so there was no way I was jumping without another job lined up.)
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Anyway, for the sake of the microsofties who are eligible, I hope they get a better offer than I did.
If it's not a good deal, they won't take it, just as you didn't take it when Google offered you your voluntary buy-out package...
Don't fall for it! (Score:2)
Back in the late '90's, Bill Gates promised to pay me $1000 if I forwarded all the emails he sent to my inbox for his email tracing program.
I've never seen a penny!
Get out of the way you old people (Score:2)
This seems nice, but it really works to push out older employees. Probably will save a lot of money on healthcare.
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This seems nice, but it really works to push out older employees. Probably will save a lot of money on healthcare.
Wow, how insightful of you - yes, a buy-out package limited to people whose age plus years of service at MS add up to 70 or greater by definition limits the offer to "older employees," since it's mathematically impossible for anyone under about 45 or 50 years of age to qualify (45 year-old employee would need 25 years "on the job" to qualify, not impossible, but unlikely to find a younger employee than that with sufficient time on the job...
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This seems nice, but it really works to push out older employees. Probably will save a lot of money on healthcare.
It's just math, and it is voluntary. And if age plus year service has to add up to 70 or more let's do some math....
Assuming a person started out at 25, they would have 45 years of service and very likely to be retired anyhow, being 70 years old.
at 40, they'd still need 30 years of service.
Weirdly, if someone was hired at 69, they'd only need 1 year of service.
So anyone taking advantage of this is going to be 70 years old. I'm surprised they have that many people (7%) that age.
Good news/bad news (Score:2)
Microsoft is offering a 6-figure buy out, but it's in Windows Store credit.
buyout (Score:2)
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So a 7% layoff, Take the offer or KEEP YOUR JOB.... A little nicer than meta, but again profit trumps people
FTFY
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So a 7% layoff, Take the offer or KEEP YOUR JOB.... A little nicer than meta, but again profit trumps people
FTFY
Such doomers, aren't they?
Taking a actual program that is giving money to 70 year old employees and turning it into some indictment of the corporate world.
Does it help Microsoft? Yes. Does it help 70 year old employees? Yes, if they want it. If they don't - well, to me it would be an obvious yes, unless they hadn't planned for retirement.