Employee Development at Microsoft: Nurturing Talent in the AI Era

Learning is the core of Microsoft culture—the culture that was rated one of the best globally in 2024. The culture that transformed Microsoft into a three trillion dollar powerhouse and a dream company for employees.

Microsoft keeps employees at the forefront and regularly invests in their growth. In this case study, we will break down Microsoft’s employee training and development strategy, why it works, and how you can replicate it.

How does Microsoft empower employees: Top learning programs

Microsoft employs a 70-20-10 learning philosophy, where 70% of learning occurs on the job, 20% through peer-to-peer interactions or mentorship, and 10% via online courses. The company offers multiple customizable learning opportunities to support employees’ growth.

We’ve documented the key employee training programs run by Microsoft below:

1. Stretch opportunities

Microsoft highly believes in learning on the job and suggests employees find “stretch” projects—the ones where they push boundaries beyond their current responsibilities. Maor Daniel, Senior Director of Global SMB Sales at Microsoft, shares that employees can have one-on-one discussions with their managers to find stretch projects of interest.

Another employee, Ritvika Nagula, credits her promotion to her proactive nature and stretch work. She started taking responsibilities for her next role even before she got it, and that made the promotion decision easy for her manager.

2. Microsoft’s Viva Learning platform

Microsoft uses its product, Viva Learning, as a learning management system (LMS). This LMS centralizes all the courses for Microsoft employees in one place and brings a structured system to learning. Viva Learning contains both courses prepared internally (by the L&D team or employees) and sourced externally (from learning platforms such as Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, etc).

Aim of Viva learning | Source: LinkedIn

How do employees make use of Microsoft Viva Learning?

1. Self-enrolment: Employees can look for courses and enroll based on their interests. It gives employees control over their learning journey, as they can opt for any course without approval.

Employees can search for courses on Viva learning | Source: Microsoft

2. Learning paths: Viva learning also allows the creation of personalized learning paths. Employees receive a set of courses specifically recommended for their role. For example, the sales team can have custom learning paths based on the role.

Sample learning path curated for sales team | Source: LinkedIn

3. Recommendations: Inside Viva Learning, employees can get:

• Recommendations from peers and managers
• AI-powered suggestions for relevant courses
• List of content trending in the organization.

Employees can choose courses from this curated list.

Recommendations on Viva learning | Source: YouTube

3. Coaching and mentoring

Microsoft facilitates learning from managers, peers, and seasoned experts.

Manager: Employees have regular one-on-one meetings with their managers for coaching conversations.

Peers: Microsoft set up Learning circles for like-minded people to connect and share their knowledge. Each circle has a theme, either on a soft or hard skill. These circles are open to internal employees and external experts.

Microsoft learning circle for coders | Source: LinkedIn

Seasoned experts (internal or external): Microsoft supports learning from seniors and external experts via coaching programs.

Benefits of coaching at Microsoft | Source: LinkedIn

4. Hackathon and events

Microsoft runs hackathons and events. Some are internal, but many are also accessible to tech enthusiasts outside the company. These events promote social learning, where employees meet talented professionals, share knowledge, and stay motivated.

A Microsoft employee announced a hackathon win on LinkedIn and praised the company culture

5. Tuition assistance

Microsoft employees can also take external courses or professional development programs beyond Viva Learning. The tech giant provides tuition assistance to employees to complete these programs and stay up to date in their field.

Microsoft employee doing master’s degree from Stanford University using tuition assistance | Source: LinkedIn

6. Aspire program

Microsoft has a detailed onboarding plan called the Aspire program to onboard new hires. It’s a two-year program where there are sessions at regular intervals that help new hires in:

• Meeting fellow new joiners/existing employees and establishing a robust network
• Gaining knowledge from senior leaders
• Getting familiar with all the growth opportunities at Microsoft.

Aspire beneficiary employee comes back as mentor in the program | Source: LinkedIn

7. Leap program

Microsoft launched an apprentice program called Leap to help talent from diverse backgrounds (stay-at-home moms, anyone looking for a career pivot, and non-technical workers) get into the tech side. Some apprentices have held jobs like baristas, medical assistants, high school teachers, musicians, filmmakers, etc. The 16-week immersive apprenticeship combines in-classroom learning with hands-on engineering projects (designed by Microsoft engineers).

While not all Leap participants secure full-time employment at Microsoft, many are given the opportunity to interview for positions. In doing so, Microsoft not only brings a bigger change but also gets highly trained entry-level talent.

Leap apprentice joined Microsoft as a full-time engineer | Source: LinkedIn

5 Reasons behind Microsoft’s Current L&D strategy

We dug deeper into Microsoft’s people development strategy and how they build themselves as a learning organization:

1. Growth mindset

Microsoft’s culture is deeply rooted in a growth mindset. The company believes anyone can change, learn, and grow. So, the tech giant continuously provides opportunities to nurture and upskill talent.

There are ample learning possibilities in their L&D strategy. Employees can self-enroll in any course or ask for stretch projects. Employees can engage with one another, the tech community, or customers through various events. Microsoft encourages employees to keep trying new things that help them develop solutions that solve business problems worldwide.

2. Knowledge sharing culture

Microsoft creates opportunities for social learning through hackathons, events, and learning circles where employees can share their knowledge.

The company also encourages employees to contribute to internal courses and document their knowledge. Employees can also recommend courses to each other. Overall, Microsoft ensures that there is sufficient knowledge transfer to prevent information from being held by a restricted group of employees.

3. Employee empowerment

Microsoft encourages employees to own their learning journey. Viva Learning and events at Microsoft programs allow self-enrolment. Employees can also discuss their growth plans with managers and customize their learning.

4. Coaching mindset

Microsoft’s manager training is considered one of the best leadership development programs in the world. As part of their leadership development program, teaching coaching skills to leaders is a priority for Microsoft. Managers create a safe space for employees in regular interactions to discuss their growth plans, mistakes, and opportunities to grow and develop.

5. Diverse and inclusive environment

“Diverse and inclusive” is one of Microsoft’s culture codes. Microsoft encourages diversity by bringing new hires from different walks of life through their Leap program. Additionally, all top learning programs at Microsoft offer self-enrollment, providing employees with an equal and inclusive platform to enhance their learning.

The key to Microsoft’s L&D success

Microsoft has carefully laid out its learning and development (L&D) strategy to support employees and their learning needs. Here are some key decisions they took that made their program such a big hit:

1. Keeping training up to date with the latest technologies and AI

Microsoft keeps training programs up to date with the skills required in the market. For example, they recently invested heavily in training employees with AI skills and built an AI learning hub.

The 2025 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report shows how organizations that prioritize career development outpace others on key indicators of business success, especially when it comes to AI adoption.

2. Making learning simple and accessible

Microsoft makes learning simple and accessible for employees. Their LMS (Viva Learning) is integrated with Teams, the communication portal employees use daily.

The integration of Viva Learning with Microsoft Teams is considered the best part because it embeds learning directly into employees’ daily workflows, making it more accessible and less disruptive. This integration allows users to find, share, and complete learning content without leaving their Teams environment, which encourages a culture of continuous learning by making it a natural part of the workday. It kills one of the key obstacles of upskilling programs, work-learn balance.

3. Giving employees control over their learning journey

80% of employees want learning tailored to their individual needs. Microsoft empowers employees to own their learning journey. Employees can choose the courses or training they participate in, as most training options allow self-enrolment.

Microsoft also uses AI in their LMS to provide personalized recommendations to employees based on their interests, skills, and learning objectives. Employees can select the training they believe is best suited for them. Using AI to personalize learning is an excellent strategy and is one of the top L&D trends today.

Employees also regularly connect with managers via one-on-one meetings for coaching. In these calls, employees can discuss their aspirations, get guidance, and request courses/stretch projects from managers. Overall, the entire L&D strategy is well-balanced between company needs and employee aspirations.

4. Incorporating multiple varieties of training to suit all learning styles

Not only does Microsoft let employees choose their own learning path, but it also provides ample types of learning options for them as well. If employees prefer learning on the go, they can ask for stretch projects. In case mentorship is what they need, they can seek coaching/mentorship options. There is an option for social learning via events, hackathons, and learning circles. So whatever might be one’s learning style, Microsoft has something in store for them.

5. Promoting learning and development initiatives

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, consistently communicates about their culture and vision in all town halls. The importance of learning and a growth mindset is reinstated regularly.

For example, Microsoft doesn’t limit itself to launching training programs as a token initiative. Their L&D and leadership team also continuously promotes programs to increase participation. For example, as part of an awareness campaign for Microsoft Viva Insights, the launch team created overview features that employees and managers would find helpful.

How can you run a development process like Microsoft?

Deel Engage enables you to run a people development process similar to Microsoft’s. The process is simple. Here is a step-by-step breakdown.

Schedule regular one-on-one meetings

Deel Engage enables managers to maintain regular check-ins with team members through its Slack plug-in 1:1 feature. The plug-in helps you to set recurring meetings, define agendas in advance, and note discussion points.

Employees can discuss their aspirations with managers in this meeting, request stretch assignments/courses, and seek any guidance.

Curate learning resources in a single learning portal

With our learning management system, you can bring all your learning content in one place (even content created in the past with SCORM files).

Deel Engage helps you create engaging courses using AI, filled with interesting content, visuals, surveys, quizzes, tasks, and periodic surveys. You can also group multiple training courses in a training program and award training certificates upon completion.

Once all resources are available, you can enable employee access and also enable self-enrollment in courses, allowing employees to choose which courses they want to take.

Assign development plans

Microsoft empowers its talent pool to define personalized growth plans according to employee career aspirations and manager coaching.

With Deel Engage, you can enable employees to drive their development plan. Managers and employees can discuss and define 70-20-10 development plans tailored to individual interests and growth potential. They can come together with personalized goals and action items (such as courses, certifications, shadowing activities, etc.) and timelines to achieve them.

Future-proof your people and business with Deel Engage

Deel Engage helps you create the right type of L&D strategy, where you can provide some handholding while still giving employees control over their learning process.

Start by defining career progression frameworks to illustrate the skills required for growth within a department. Employees can review the framework and design their own learning journey.

The best part is that Deel Engage doesn’t run in isolation as a training software. You can bring new hires onto the platform for onboarding, conduct regular training, and also automate the feedback loop to support their continuous growth.

Book a demo to create a continuous learning culture at your workplace.