Microsoft announces significant HR changes, focused on AI

Big changes are happening within Microsoft’s HR team.

The tech giant announced sweeping changes to its HR function last month via an employee memo sent by its chief people officer, Amy Coleman, and subsequently obtained and leaked by Business Insider.

Sweeping changes. The memo announced the departures of several top HR executives, including its chief diversity officer, Lindsay-Rae McIntyre (who was then named Alaska Airlines’ CPO on Mar. 30), as well as a restructuring to better support the development and deployment of AI within HR and Microsoft broadly.

It indicated that the goal of the shakeup was to keep the HR function’s processes up to date in an AI era.

“We’re in a time when technology, the way we work, and our org structures are all evolving. The pace of change is exceeding what our current operating model and decision rhythms were built for,” Coleman wrote in the memo.

One of the changes includes consolidating all of the HR staff supporting Microsoft’s engineering teams under one engineering HR team led by CVP Melanie Simpson, who worked closely with the teams responsible for tools including Copilot, Microsoft 365, and Windows, according to Coleman’s memo. Her memo also announced that the people analytics team, helmed by General Manager Kanwal Safdar, would be merged under the employee experience organization, led by CVP Nathalie D’Hers, in the hope of improving the team’s strategy, creating “faster learning and stronger insight to action loops,” and helping to “deliver AI-first products and experiences,” Coleman said in the memo.

Coleman also announced the creation of a Workforce Acceleration team, led by VP Justin Thenutai, which will focus on workforce planning, as well as internal mobility at the company, including L&D and reskilling. The learning and skilling team will subsequently report to Thenutai, Coleman shared.

“Bringing these levers together under one leader allows us to test and learn faster with the business, so we can scale what works and win in our next chapter,” Coleman wrote.

Zoom out. Later that same day, Coleman spoke at the Wall Street Journal’s CPO Council Summit, where she shared how AI is transforming the HR function. While she did not acknowledge the changes to her team, she said AI has helped HR better support other parts of the business. As an example, she said that in tandem with AI, the HR function is practicing the business framework of continuous improvement, focusing on ongoing efforts to improve their processes or services.

“I think the idea that you can take continuous improvement and AI and apply it to things in HR, or things in any sort of group…that’s where the magic really lies when you think about AI and enablement,” she said.