Microsoft employees have been known to stick around. CEO Satya Nadella and several other senior executives joined the company more than 25 years ago. But that has changed amid the pandemic, as Microsoft, along with virtually every other technology company, has struggled to retain talent.

Attrition at Microsoft has become a big enough problem that in an email to more than 20,000 managers last week, Chief People Officer Kathleen Hogan told them to follow new guidelines her team had developed to help retain employees. Over the past few years, she said, the company had found many employees were leaving because they felt their career development or growth had stalled, so the new guidelines aimed to help managers talk with subordinates about career goals. In recent quarters, 25% of Microsoft employees also said it was easier to get a job outside Microsoft than to move to other roles internally, Hogan said in the email, which The Information has viewed.