Microsoft Voluntary Exit Offer: The giant tech company Microsoft has made a big proposal for its employees. The company is now offering a voluntary exit offer to employees to quit their jobs. The company has taken this step to manage its costs in the age of AI. The last date for acceptance of this offer is fixed as December 1, 2026. The company will not send away employees who opt for this offer empty-handed. A strong financial package is being given in return. This offer is applicable only to eligible employees at level 70 or below. The company has sent a direct link to the official email of the eligible people.

How much money will you get on voluntary exit?

Microsoft has a simple rule of severance pay for its employees. Company will provide 1 month basic pay for every complete year of service. If the basic salary of an employee is 1 lakh rupees per month. If he has worked in the company for 2 years then he will get 2 lakh rupees. Those who work for 5 years will get 5 lakh rupees. 8 lakh rupees will be given to those who complete 8 years.

Different rules may also apply according to some internal levels of the company. In such cases, an employee with a basic salary of Rs 1 lakh will get at least 2 months salary i.e. Rs 2 lakh. At the same time, you can get up to 9 lakh rupees equivalent to a maximum salary of 39 weeks i.e. about 9 months. Even during the layoffs in America earlier this year, severance packages started at 60 days of basic pay and rose to 39 weeks. There, employees at level 64 or below get one week’s basic pay for every 6 months of service. While people of 65 to 67 level were given two weeks salary.

Cashless facilities are available

Microsoft’s exit package doesn’t just include cash. The company is also offering three other major benefits to the employees who quit. The first benefit is health insurance. Even after separation from the company, the employee and his family will continue to get the health insurance facility from Microsoft for a fixed period. However, it does not include long-term healthcare such as retirement plans.

Another major benefit is stock vesting. If an employee has unvested Company Shares (RSUs), even after leaving employment, their regular vesting will continue for the next 6 months or more depending on tenure. A third feature is career transition services. In addition to finding new jobs and career planning, Microsoft will also offer professional support to those leaving the company to learn new skills.

What are the options for those who reject the offer?

This offer is not for all teams. Business leaders themselves are deciding whether their team will participate in this or not. Apart from sales, marketing, commercial business, security, discovery and quantum teams are completely excluded from this offer. On the other hand, HR team along with Copilot, Core-AI, Windows Plus Devices, Xbox, Finance are part of this offering. Cloud Plus AI and Microsoft AI teams are partially involved in this.

Employees who do not take up this voluntary exit offer will continue to work in their current roles. The company can also assign him to other projects or a new team if required. However, there is also a big risk in this. If Microsoft is not able to meet its cost reduction targets through this voluntary offer, it may take a forced layoff step in the near future. In case of retrenchment, employees do not get as good an economic package as a voluntary exit.

The company’s new experiment under pressure to cut costs

Microsoft is currently spending billions of dollars on AI infrastructure along with data centers. Due to this, there is a huge pressure on the company to keep its operating costs low. Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, called the offer a new experiment for the company. He says that the same rule cannot be applied to every team or employee. The company is also looking at whether voluntary exits can be made a regular part of every year. How many of the 60,000 employees choose this deal?

Earlier this year, the company introduced the first voluntary retirement program. That offer was made to about 8,750 American employees, which was accepted by about 30 percent. For this, the company booked a charge of $900 million in April. This helped reduce the number of layoffs. Despite this, the company laid off 4,800 employees worldwide in July, i.e. 2.1 percent of the total staff. Hundreds of people were laid off in September as well.