I am super proud of my company (Microsoft) right now - let me tell you why.

This week one of my employees informed me they had accepted a job offer at a competing company. I'm always sad to see someone leave the team, but it is part of life.

I inform them that I will be following our documented HR guidance here - and that because they were going to competition the process would probably be quite quick. They told me they understood, and I started on the paper work. And it was quick! Their last day was today...

Or, I should say, their last day was going to be today. This morning the employee contacted to let me know they had a problem. There was a family emergency and they needed to be on a plane to another country right now - so they could be there with their family.

But, as a H1-B holder they could not leave USA while they were between jobs. They asked if we could extend their termination date. To be clear, the MSFT HR guidance here is clear. The paperwork had all been done and signed. They had ~7 hours left as a MSFT employee.

I told them we could try, but I was not hopeful. Two hours later we were in a call with a HR Director at MSFT; who immediately agreed that while this was against MSFT policy, that was not important here. What was important was that this person needed to be with their family.

One hour ago I got on the phone with my employee and told them they were good to get on the plane - we had extended their employment for an extra week. https://t.co/1SNwkv0ZOT