"As we bring our innovations into more global markets and work to close the digital divide, it's never been more important to honor, respect and make the most of our Diversity. I encourage our employees to bring a global perspective into everything we do, and to continue investing in building and retaining a Diverse workforce"

--- Bill Gates

Microsoft China Diversity Week

Ensuring that our organization in Greater China is able to attract, engage and retain the very best talents regardless of their gender, age, work style, ethnicity or any other dimension of what we recognize as "diversity". Microsoft has committed to recognizing and respecting individual differences among all of us because this approach has resulted in and will continue to bring a wealth of fresh ideas and creative problem solving as we focus on the customers and markets we serve, the products and services we develop, and our growing workforce. In order to celebrate diversity, our China team rolled out diversity awareness week in the 2nd week of August.

During the week, a number of fun activities were held to focus on a culture of diversity such as our focus on hiring more female employees at all levels of our organization. The objective of this event was to raise employee awareness of diversity and build a supportive culture and environment where everyone feels valued, respected and are able to achieve maximum potential. The activities include:

•	Diversity Hero Award - recognize people managers who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to diversity.
•	Diversity@Microsoft Training - corporation wide on-line training classroom training.
•	Diversity Luncheon sessions - provided focus groups (e.g. female employees, parents, long service employees) with practical knowledge and skills help them manage work and life more effectively.
•	Diversity knowledge Contest - a contest centred on diversity and inclusion.

So, how was the event received?

Our China employees responded extremely positively to the activities. The diversity luncheon sessions achieved high attendances of nearly 1000 person-time with lively discussion throughout the sessions; a great deal of responses have been secured for the online diversity knowledge competition; a total of 51 candidates were nominated for diversity hero and, 4 winners were selected for this year's.

The excitement around this event and overall employees engagement has energized the management team and reinforced the positive results of focusing on diversity. Future internal and external events are currently being planned, including recruiting events.