Microsoft Receives i4cp’s Inaugural Culture Renovation™ Award

Presented at the i4cp 2020 Next Practices Now Conference, the award honors excellence in organizational culture change

Seattle, WA - Microsoft was honored today by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) with the research firm’s inaugural Culture Renovation™ Award in recognition of Microsoft’s successful efforts to plan, build, and maintain successful culture change.

Under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s focus on organizational culture has received a great deal of recognition for the business and organizational progress that the company has achieved over the last few years.

As its market capitalization has grown to beyond $1.5 trillion USD, Microsoft has become a model of successful culture change during Nadella’s tenure, an incredible feat given that the company has more than 160,000 employees and a presence in 190 countries. Even still, the company continues to renovate its culture to become more agile and resilient in the face of constant new disruptions. 

Microsoft’s culture change efforts are featured in i4cp’s Culture Renovation™ research, based on input from over 5,000 organizations, and in the upcoming book Culture Renovation: 18 Leadership Actions to Build an Unshakeable Company, by i4cp CEO Kevin Oakes.

“Our research shows only 15% of companies are highly successful at changing their culture,” said Oakes. “My forthcoming book, which is based on that research, honed in on those successes and we created a blueprint of 18 action steps which any organization can follow to change their culture. I consider Microsoft as Example 1A of how to do this; the renovation Nadella and his team have engineered really embodies what it takes, and certainly was an inspiration for many of the steps laid out in the book. Microsoft is the perfect inaugural recipient of this important award.”

At the i4cp 2020 Next Practices Now Virtual Conference, Joe Whittinghill, Corporate Vice President, Talent, Learning, and Insights at Microsoft, accepted the award and provided an update on the company’s ever-evolving work, how their culture helped guide their response to the ongoing pandemic, and what Microsoft sees as the necessary next steps.

“As a long-time supporter of i4cp, we are honored to receive the Culture Renovation™ Award,” said Whittinghill. “While we’re proud of the progress we’ve made with our culture and business transformation, we don’t believe we have cracked the code on culture change. It’s an ongoing endeavor which we continue to work at, and we appreciate the invaluable counsel i4cp has provided to us in support of these efforts.”

About i4cp

i4cp is the leading authority on next practices in human capital management. We produce more research than any other human capital research firm in the world, and many of the world’s most prominent organizations and HR leaders turn to i4cp to better capitalize on emerging workforce trends. Supported by a powerful community of human capital practitioners, we provide insights that help organizations better anticipate, adapt, and act in a constantly changing business environment.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.