Why does Microsoft need the Starters community?
The community helps new employees feel at home at Microsoft. It's a safe space to ask questions and share. We have HR and an employee experience department, but there's something more eye-level, immediate and approachable about asking fellow community members. Someone who joined just a week ago may have run into the exact same thing, and they can help quickly because they still have a new employee's perspective. The community leaders aren't the only ones creating content. It's in the members' hands to create the content that matters to them, and that's where the community's value comes from.
How was the community founded?
It was a long road to get there. For 2.5 years now we've been living in a completely new reality, ever since COVID broke out. Getting used to working from home was hard. In that same period, Microsoft's R&D division grew by 55% (!), and we onboarded a huge number of employees remotely. They didn't walk into the office on day one to meet their manager and team, and we felt they were missing part of the excitement of starting somewhere new. They were missing a guiding hand along the way. We have onboarding with the direct manager and support from a buddy, but employees often still feel alone, especially when everyone is working from home separately. Early in COVID, when I'd call to ask how people were doing and whether they needed anything, I noticed they were still missing those random coffee chats in the hallways, and that it's hard to give them, remotely, the feeling that we all care about them fitting in. That's where the idea came from: to build a community that helps new employees settle in both technically and, of course, socially, and to make sure they feel connected and know Microsoft is there for them.
We had a clear vision when we built the community, which I borrowed from Microsoft's overall vision (to empower people, organizations and the planet to achieve more and go as far as possible). For the community, the vision was to empower every new employee and every team to get the most out of themselves. And of course that also carries our organization into the future in the best possible way.
When we built the community, we defined its audience as every employee joining the organization, up to their first year at the company. The content is closely tailored to employees at this stage of their career at Microsoft. Everyone is still welcome to stay, and we don't remove anyone. That said, employees sometimes leave the community on their own after about a year. Right now we're working on a model where, after a year, we invite employees to our "buddy" training (buddies support new employees), so they can help onboard newcomers themselves. A kind of full circle where everyone wins.
What is the Starters community and how does it work?
When new employees arrive at Microsoft, they meet our team for coffee on day one to talk about everything that matters to them as they settle in, and one of those things is an invitation to the community. The community runs on our Teams channel, with sub-channels that hold recordings of sessions and relevant content. We also have an email list we use to send invitations to monthly sessions that are exclusive to the community and packed with content for new employees. For example, we bring in consultants who explain how to set up a workstation at the office and at home for ergonomic sitting and working, without unnecessary physical strain. Or sessions with senior managers in the organization who talk about managing a career. Day to day there's a lot of "traffic": plenty of information exchange and questions, from admin questions like how to sign up for a benefit to collaborations with the recruiting department on referral programs. And of course there's lots of interaction and personal connection. For example, a new employee from Herzliya came to our offices and we had lunch together, because he felt he knew someone at the Haifa offices and didn't have to eat alone. The community meets social and professional needs at every level.
One of the biggest projects we ran was a flagship event for new employees in 2021. The goal was networking and connecting people to the organization, and it included professional talks, a professional panel and a lot of fun. The CEO came too, and it was amazing to see that sense of togetherness.
It's worth noting that the community is open to new employees at every stage of their career, from students and recent graduates to people with an impressive career behind them who joined Microsoft after years elsewhere. There's a lot of diversity in the community, and that's its huge advantage. People discover that in the end everyone has similar questions, and it really helps to know they're not alone. At the same time, all the varied knowledge in the community enriches everyone.
When did you realize the community was working?
I usually get to work and order a coffee first thing. While I was waiting for mine, I overheard a few employees talking. One said he was really stuck on something, and the other told him, "What's the problem? Post it in Starters, they'll answer you right away." Even though the community was still in its very early stages, I realized people were already talking about it. They knew it, used it, and it had become a household name. It warmed my heart.
On the professional side, I see the results on the ground. Employees get up to speed much faster and enjoy it more. They feel at home sooner, and that affects everything: the professional contribution of the new employee, how they join their teams, and how they grow personally and professionally.
We also measure the community's work all the time, and we see results. Quantitatively, we measure the volume of conversation in the community and how diverse it is (that it isn't always the same people taking part). Qualitatively, we keep checking with employees about what the community gives them and where and how we can improve.
An employee from the Herzliya site who was passing by looked at me and said, "Hey, you're Eli, the rockstar of the new employees!" That just shows the vibe and the feeling in the community. It's so much fun.
Cracking the win-win: how do you make sure both the community and the organization get value?
The win for the community: members feel at home in the organization faster. They connect with each other, get answers to their questions, and feel they belong and are seen, even remotely during the challenging COVID period.
The win for the organization: successful onboarding is critical for retaining new employees and developing them. New employees who feel at home deliver faster and settle into their professional lives more easily.
A challenge you faced
We're constantly bringing people into the organization, which means we're constantly bringing people into the community. That can get overwhelming and repetitive, so we built mechanisms to onboard people into the community itself well. Our team gives employees everything they need to know and shares guides with them, and we have an internal site where all of this information is easy to find. That goes a long way toward preventing repeat questions in the community. And within the community, we have a knowledge base where you can search everything the community has done since day one, with the sessions we ran being the most important part.
Tips for community success
- Choosing a platform for an "ongoing" community that people are constantly joining is critical. The tool has to be both a communication channel and a knowledge base that helps people see which topics already have answers and what's already been discussed. We thought about this for a long time before we landed on a model that works for us. Teams is a really easy platform to use, and we held many meetings with our in-house experts who work on and with Teams to understand the tool inside out and how to use it for the community.
- Both new employees and veteran employees really help drive the community forward. When we first launched, we asked veteran employees to be "seeders" and help us get it going, and we suddenly saw how much it connected them to the organization too, and how much it helped them in their own work. They go back to their veteran teams and share things they only discovered after a few years.
- Our community is exclusive and genuinely sought after in the organization, and that makes people want to join.
- Management's support was amazing: budgets, sessions that senior managers ran themselves, availability, and simply a desire to be part of this. That's my main tip: you need support to build a community. And don't give up if it doesn't work at first.