Cover - Windows of opportunity

It's that time of the month again. Fernando Esquivel calls up a number of key executives in New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore and various parts of the Asia Pacific region to discuss with them certain aspects of their work. 

Typically lasting at least an hour each, the conversations are an important part of Esquivel's agenda. They help the Asia Pacific human resources director of Microsoft stay abreast of business developments and issues on the ground. The calls are also a means of briefing his team on upcoming initiatives and gathering feedback on their work. In fact, Esquivel's connection calls are a part of Microsoft's systematic network to keep communication alive and well within the software giant.

For Esquivel, the network comprises HR and key business units. Within Asia Pacific, he connects with the heads of different business units, various country HR directors, his direct reports and the APAC HR leadership team. As a member of Microsoft's worldwide HR leadership team, he also partakes in their "dynamic dialogues" concerning future directions of HR which help him understand "the initiatives coming our way".

Esquivel's description of HR's participation at business meetings is nothing short of promising, calling them a time to uncover "opportunities". "If there is a talent shortage in one of the business units, it is HR's opportunity to move in," he says. Being in tune with the business also means that HR has to be realistic and flexible in the way its initiatives are executed. Planning the recruitment schedule is one example. "When we plan to hire 50 people for the Singapore office, we sometimes need to schedule that in stages: 10 people in Q1, 20 in Q2 and so on. We also need to review our business objectives and track them against how we're doing as we go along," explains Esquivel.

Summing up his roles, the regional HR director says his main responsibilities are to "build strategy around people" in Asia Pacific and oversee the region's HR team, which has 50 HR practitioners. In addition, he also supports its Asia Pacific vice president and his team.

More specifically, Esquivel's role is to ensure that Microsoft's Asia Pacific HR strategies are aligned with global initiatives and properly integrated with each country's unique market and business conditions, statutory requirements and prevailing cultures. "At the end of the day, the company has to have consistent processes even though the different offices may have very different challenges," he says.

One of the main commonalities shared by Asia Pacific countries is, he observes, their great potential for growth and development which brings about the need for sound talent attraction and recruitment policies.

Through a recruitment programme known as the Microsoft Academy of College Hires (MACH), the company visits campuses to recruit recent graduates, typically from MBA programmes in a number of disciplines including sales, marketing, technology and science. Esquivel notes that this is particularly active in India where their main office is in Delhi.

"India is a fascinating country for us (Microsoft)," says Esquivel. He adds that in India alone, the conglomerate has 200 different business units including sales and marketing, consulting, a global technology support centre in Bangalore - much like a call centre - and the Microsoft India Development Centre, a software development centre like the one in Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Apart from recruitment, the other pressing issue is hiring people with the right skills. A case in point is the Bangalore support centre, which has 1,000 employees. "When the customer service officers pick up their phones, it's mostly about a problem. That officer has to have the right level of skills to first of all understand the problem, and then he or she needs to know our technology so as to offer customers solutions," says Esquivel.

The other common discussion surrounding the region pertains to its People Review initiative, a talent management programme conducted in a "very disciplined manner". Esquivel says that getting the corporation acquainted with its key executives is crucial to talent management and succession planning. "We meet with Steven Ballmer (Microsoft's chief executive) and corporate directors in Redmond just to talk about our people and how they are performing in their roles," he says. "When you have people in leadership positions, the corporation should know who they are." For an organisation in favour of hiring and promoting from within, this is no doubt a sensible practice to have.

On the employees' end, the People Review process also seeks to assess employee commitment and understand their expectations. During the mid-year review (MYR), employees get an opportunity to discuss their "aspirations" for working with the company. "We ask employees where they would like to go with Microsoft," and that information is kept on record. "Believe me when I say I check that information thoroughly, not all 5,000 but some 170 of them," states Esquivel.

Besides MYR, Microsoft also has in place an annual review process to assign performance-based employee ratings. To do that, "we run calibration sessions where the business leaders get together to discuss how their team had done in the past cycle. They also talk about their team members' next step." Once the talent pool is more clearly defined, HR then designs a development programme. "Some of these are designed for talent considered for leadership positions in the next 12 to 18 months. There are also modules to address management development capabilities, even language lessons, if necessary.

Microsoft's development programmes are based on the competencies that the company values. "Sometimes, the development may not be in a form of a training class, but an opportunity for the employee to work in another region so as to get exposure to a different environment," he adds.

In fact, Esquivel is himself a good example of Microsoft's succession planning and development programme. A Mexican citizen, he joined the company in 2001 as human resources director for Latin America before being transferred to the "much larger" Asia Pacific region.

"When given the opportunity to work in Asia, I said yes on the spot, even though at that time I didn't know what challenges I was jumping into," he exclaims. He says that although unfamiliar, he was intrigued to learn more about Asia.

Perhaps it was the same inquisitiveness and adventurous spirit (Esquivel reckons he would attempt bungee jumping if given the opportunity) that landed Esquivel in an HR career, where his background lies in mechanical and electrical engineering.

Esquivel says he developed an interest in HR and people management while at university. As he was made president of the student society, he got to interact with his peers at a different level, and he also observed how management skills came into play. He found group dynamics and management an enigma. "I thought at that time that I knew about matters relating to mechanical and electrical engineering, but little about people or management," he recalls. Eager to learn more, Esquivel decided then that his first choice of career would be in HR, followed by manufacturing. Joining Procter & Gamble (P&G) Mexico upon graduation where he switched between manufacturing and HR roles allowed him to experience both. However, what really kicked off his HR career was his stint as an organisational capability manager in P&G Mexico. He later became regional human resources manager for The Clorox Company for Latin American before joining Microsoft.

Having had a hand in country-specific HR roles before assuming responsibility for wider, regional portfolios, Esquivel says there are certain qualities that the latter calls for. One of them is the willingness to invest time to understand and learn about his or her region of scope. In his case, it was considerably more challenging since he grew up outside Asia Pacific.

"It's important to understand why, and beyond that, why not, in order to be effective in this role," states Esquivel. He adds that as Asia is a big region, HR has to be clear about its priorities, the choices that they have and the processes they need to follow. Further, clarity of execution is important if the region is to be committed to the processes, as most of them are not designed in this region, but at the corporate level.

Moving to a software industry, he notes, presents a very different set of challenges, most notably the rapid pace of change. Esquivel says he feels compelled to learn and utilise the company's myriad new applications and technology applicable to his job, often changing the way he works. The advent of a new communication application, for instance, heralds a change in the way he establishes connections with his team.

More specific to business HR, Esquivel says the industry's rapid pace of change calls for HR to redefine itself to stay ahead. "At certain points, we created positions that didn't exist in the market." One such example is business productivity advisor - "a very strategic position where the executive has to have good knowledge of customer needs and an understanding of Microsoft technology so as to come up with potential solutions."

Another business feature that impacts on Microsoft's workforce management is the diversity of its offerings, which ranges from communication tools such as MSN Messenger to home and entertainment features such as Xbox to systems such as Windows or Office. "When you want to transfer someone from one division to another, you really have to plan it very well because sometimes you get people with the right skills but a lack of knowledge of a product line," he stresses.

That task may just get harder as chairman Bill Gates vows to, amongst other strategies, diversify their business even further in a bid to rise above the technology war. The conglomerate is reportedly under attack by a bevy of competitors from various fronts, threatening to put its durability to the test. The vision for a more diversified business includes foraying into consumer electronics such as music download services and wireless media streaming hubs and developing better mobile media software.

The further diversification of the business brings to mind the issue of motivation for the different profiles and demographics of people working within Microsoft. "What motivates a developer, for instance, may not necessarily engage someone in a different position the same way," Esquivel contends. He adds that the "developers' world is totally different", and that the passion developers display in their work impresses him.

Esquivel believes it's the same passion developers share that prompts the avid participation in Imagine Cup, a worldwide event sponsored by Microsoft to celebrate and showcase student achievements in technology. "It's amazing watching them come to the event with their wares and all these wires hanging over their inventions, working overtime to come up with the best solutions."

Motivating people and promoting passion for their work are strategies Esquivel believes will continue well into the coming years of working at Microsoft. He says that as the company "invests a lot on bringing the right people onboard, every single employee we place, whether it's an internal move or someone we invited to join from the industry is a very serious process for us. HR's contribution to that is to run the function well." On top of that, he adds that HR has to see that they maintain the implementation discipline in all the processes that go behind the organisation's people strategy. "Otherwise, we can't say that we're doing our jobs well."

On a more macro level, Esquivel says one of Microsoft's critical mid-term goals is to improve customer and partner satisfaction in terms of the solutions they provide after a recent survey they conducted in this aspect revealed that "we're not quite there yet".

Already, Esquivel can see how an improvement in the level of customer satisfaction will impact HR. "Today, if we win more customers, we'll grow, and when we grow, HR will have to develop our people to take on bigger challenges so as to support the different business units." That is the challenge or rather "opportunity" Esquivel expects will come HR's way.

Biographic data

Fernando Esquivel

1989

Graduated from Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey - Campus Estado de Mexico in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering

1990

Joined The Procter and Gamble Company in Mexico as a training and development supervisor. Esquivel also held line management and organisational capability roles within the product supply organisation.

1993

Obtained Master in Business Administration at Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey

1996

Joined The Clorox Company in Mexico as human resources manager.

1997

Transferred to the USA as human resources manager for Latin America for The Clorox Company based out of Miami, Florida.

2001

Joined Microsoft Corporation, Latin American region, as human resources director for Latin America and in the latter part of 2004 transferred to oversee the human resources function for the Asia Pacific region.