Insight interview - The Human Touch.

(From Financial Director)

Byline: Tom Berry.

When companies claim that 'people are our greatest asset' you can be forgiven for assuming that a certain amount of lip service is being paid. But softer skills such as internal communication, and intangible assets such as knowledge and brand management, are making their way up the finance director's agenda.

Steve Harvey is a case in point. He joined Microsoft's UK office as FD in 1990 after a spell at Habitat as a management accountant before its sale to IKEA. Harvey assumed the mantle of Microsoft's director of people, profit and culture in the late 1990s, combining the finance and HR functions.

Harvey volunteered for the HR job because he felt he could make more impact on people in the business. "You get to a stage in life, and I'm now 45, when you want to give something back." But as Microsoft UK is primarily concerned with marketing and selling products in the US, the financial aspects of the business were centralised in Washington State, meaning the UK FD job was more controller than director.

So Harvey's number two, Paul Hart, who Harvey says "is a much better controller than I ever was", assumed responsibility for 'profit' in January 2003, while Harvey became simply director of people and culture. This left Harvey to concentrate on succession planning and retaining talented staff.

Microsoft has historically had a bad reputation as an employer. When Harvey first joined Microsoft he admits it "was like the old Wild West" where employees worked ridiculous hours on bad pay on the promise of getting rich through share options. This, combined with lots of negative press, made it difficult to attract good talent to the organisation - especially when the share price was taking a tumble. "We got to the stage where we could only attract applications for jobs by putting out adverts without our name on them. That's how bad our reputation got as a sweatshop."