- Microsoft's chief marketing officer told employees to bump the stock price for raises, Fortune reported.
- Earlier this month, Microsoft told salaried employees they wouldn't receive raises.
Microsoft employees aren't getting raises this year. Its chief marketing officer says there's a way to change that — by working to push the company's stock higher.
"The most important lever for almost all our employees' compensation upside is the stock price," CMO Chris Capossela wrote to employees in an internal conversation, reported by Fortune. "So great quarterly results contribute to making the stock attractive which in turn drives everyone's total compensation up."
Already so far this year, Microsoft's stock is up nearly 33%, far outpacing the broader stock market, which is up only around 10% over the same time.
Earlier this month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent employees an email saying the company was not raising salaries for full-time employees this year, and that it would not "overfund" bonuses and stock awards as it had done in the previous year.
The email pointed to economic conditions as a reason for no raises, and said it was making compensation "commensurate with the overall market."
Meanwhile, in January, Nadella sent employees an email saying the company was planning to lay off 10,000 employees through the end of the third quarter of this year.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Earlier this year, Microsoft made a multi-billion dollar investment in AI startup OpenAI that was reported to be worth $10 billion, and released an AI-powered update of Bing through the partnership.