Article + OF noun phrases

[vcolts]

Ex1. Employees at Microsoft will be paid a large bonus this year.


Ex2. The employees at Microsoft will be paid a large bonus this year.


Q1. Are both grammatically correct and academically acceptable, meaning I do not require "the" article in front "of"?


Q2. The only difference between the two is that the second one means that there are specific/certain employees but not all of the employees? Or can they mean the exactly same thing, meaning "all employees of Microsoft?"


Thanks in advance.

[MikeNewYork]

They can both mean the same thing. However, if there is a distinction, the second one is more likely to mean that all employess will recieve the bonus.