Microsoft is retiring its peer-feedback tool as it overhauls employee reviews, an internal message shows

Microsoft is retiring a peer-feedback instrumentality arsenic it overhauls worker reviews, according to an soul connection viewed by Business Insider.

The tool, called Perspectives, allowed labor to petition input connected their capacity from peers that would beryllium visible to the worker and their managers. Microsoft has been utilizing this instrumentality since 2018.

"The Perspectives instrumentality is being retired," the connection says. "Feedback remains an important portion of our maturation mindset, and we heard from labor and managers that feedback is astir valuable erstwhile shared done ongoing, in-the-moment conversations alternatively than general requests."

The instrumentality is nary longer disposable for caller feedback requests, though labor tin respond to progressive requests and export feedback history until September 15, according to the message. The connection suggests the instrumentality will beryllium replaced by informal discussions pinch an employee's peers.

The alteration comes arsenic Microsoft overhauls its capacity review system, simplifying ratings into 5 categories while making capacity distinctions importantly sharper.

At the aforesaid time, managers person been instructed to trim the number of labor successful higher-level engineering roles arsenic Microsoft continues flattening parts of the organization, emblematic of a broader hardcore activity culture that's dispersed crossed Big Tech successful the past fewer years.

The Perspectives instrumentality had replaced the company's erstwhile Feedback Tool, which allowed managers to collect, review, and summarize adjacent feedback for employees. Perspectives was intended to beryllium "less intimidating," arsenic reported by Quartz successful 2022, as a motion of a "kinder, gentler Microsoft."

A Microsoft quality resources executive told Quartz astatine the clip that Perspectives deliberately omitted the connection "feedback," which she said triggered antagonistic impressions.

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