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Activision Blizzard says it’s facing difficulties attracting and retaining talent (VCG)

kingfey

Banned

Activision Blizzard has said it’s having problems attracting new employees and keeping hold of existing ones due to various factors.

In its annual report (via Axios), the Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush publisher cited labour shortages, growing competition for talent, and increasing attrition as factors related to its current recruitment struggles.

Activision Blizzard is also currently facing multiple regulatory investigations over its handling of alleged sexual assaults, discrimination and harassment of female employees.

And in its annual report, the company said its recruitment problems are likely to be exacerbated by ongoing litigation and bad press.

“We are experiencing increased difficulty in attracting and retaining skilled personnel,” it wrote. “For example, we observed a significantly higher turnover rate of our human resources function in 2021.

“Additionally, recent litigation involving the Company relating to workplace and employee concerns… and related media attention can be expected to have an adverse effect on our ability to attract and retain employees and has resulted in work stoppages.”

In November, a Wall Street Journal report alleged that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick was aware of multiple sexual misconduct allegations at the company.

In a statement at the time, a company spokesperson said Kotick “would not have been informed of every report of misconduct at every Activision Blizzard company, nor would he reasonably be expected to have been updated on all personnel issues”.

Kotick was also accused of mistreating several female employees, including leaving a voicemail in 2006 in which he threatened to have an assistant killed.

An Activision spokesperson said of the accusation: “Mr. Kotick quickly apologized 16 years ago for the obviously hyperbolic and inappropriate voice mail, and he deeply regrets the exaggeration and tone in his voicemail to this day.”

The Activision Blizzard board also released a statement at the time saying it remained confident in Kotick’s leadership.

Xbox owner Microsoft announced in January that it intends to acquire Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion deal – the game industry’s biggest ever by some distance.

A recent regulatory filing revealed Microsoft started acquisition talks with Activision Blizzard just days after the publication of the aforementioned Wall Street Journal report.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Wait. A company that treats it's employees like crap, can't find talent to fill it's ranks?
Who would have imagined such a thing.

giphy.gif
 

dwish

Member
Finally the walls come crumbling. It has been long overdue. Just sucks Mr Bobby probably will be standing far away from it.
 

Jennings

Member
More pay. Fewer hours. Fewer random layoffs every time you announce a massive profit.

Everything else is gravy. Pay more and demand fewer hours and stop firing staff and you'll have long lines of qualified employees looking for long-term work showing up on your doorstep.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
Maybe after all the bullshit that this company pulled, people working there realized that you can make twice the salary outside the industry doing relatively the exact same thing and with a lot less stress.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
This is true, but with the money they paid, MS will be highly motivated to try and work something out hopefully resulting in better work conditions.
It should be top priority, given how much this has been out in the public
 

Smokken

Banned
Stop quota hiring women, that's a step in the right direction. "Diversifying" your company will just create a mess, seeing all the crap they're going through lately. No man wants to work in that environment.
 
Activision has been a shitty company for a long time. When Zampella and co left IW and the whole shit-show Activision made over that internally, it was clear they were a company whose management cared more for their bottom line than the welfare of their employees (to rather an extreme level).
 

laynelane

Member
The Activision Blizzard board also released a statement at the time saying it remained confident in Kotick’s leadership.

The board and Kotick both put money way over the people who have an integral role in making them that money. No wonder no one wants to work there. You can see the mindset when only apologizing for making a death threat to an employee was deemed sufficient.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
And the damage will be done, it will take some time to convince people to go work at Activistion.
What damage? Ms and xbox have good track record for gender equality and having systems and procedures to report sexual harassment.
Also plenty of other companies have had sexism and harassment allogations and they are doing very well.

All game companies compete and struggle for talent.
 
Outside of the shitty culture didn’t these guys introduce woke hiring a while back?

I know from personal experience that a lot of people skip over these sorts of places as they care more about the pronoun ticked on the resume than the experience listed below…it means you could end up working with some real humpty dumpties
 

bitbydeath

Member
Outside of the shitty culture didn’t these guys introduce woke hiring a while back?

I know from personal experience that a lot of people skip over these sorts of places as they care more about the pronoun ticked on the resume than the experience listed below…it means you could end up working with some real humpty dumpties
Which wouldn’t surprise me if that led to the harassment and suicide. The woke have no empathy.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Happens in every company in every industry really, they treat people like shit saying if you don't like it you can quit, there are 10 people already waiting behind the gate for your position, and before they notice they have to literally beg people to apply for work there.
 
Activision Blizzard makes games that have dying communities. No one is enthusiastic about CoD, WoW, or Candy Crush. The only people left are people with sunk cost fallacy, casual yearly purchase/micros, or legitimate mental issues. Imagine being a highly skilled software engineer who can easily make 6 figures doing barely nothing at a small company remotely or work your ass off for 60k in California for a trash company that makes products mocked by their vocal audience. NEXT!
 

Zeroing

Banned
What damage? Ms and xbox have good track record for gender equality and having systems and procedures to report sexual harassment.
Also plenty of other companies have had sexism and harassment allogations and they are doing very well.

All game companies compete and struggle for talent.
What I’m trying to say is if people have 2 jobs offers between Activision and another studio, I am pretty sure people will not choose Activision…
Also that “companies are going very well” it’s wrong, we even had a thread about another studio who talent is leaving.
 

Hinedorf

Banned
Not long from having difficulties attracting and retaining customers. It's odd how much I loved some of those Blizzard games but I haven't and really have no interest in playing virtually anything from either Activision or Blizzard with the exception of Diablo 3.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
What I’m trying to say is if people have 2 jobs offers between Activision and another studio, I am pretty sure people will not choose Activision…
Also that “companies are going very well” it’s wrong, we even had a thread about another studio who talent is leaving.

Maybe now, but Microsoft/Xbox is very LGBTQ, and gender equal company im sure they will make sure that this company doctrine will be implemented from the bottom to top at Acti-blizz.

As for pay and benefits Microsoft/Xbox offer some if not the best in the industry.

The other deciding factor will be what kinda of games they want to work on, warzone and COD is still the best competitive FPS on on the market. Its also a genre where there plenty of innovation to be had.
 

Zeroing

Banned
Maybe now, but Microsoft/Xbox is very LGBTQ, and gender equal company im sure they will make sure that this company doctrine will be implemented from the bottom to top at Acti-blizz.

As for pay and benefits Microsoft/Xbox offer some if not the best in the industry.

The other deciding factor will be what kinda of games they want to work on, warzone and COD is still the best competitive FPS on on the market. Its also a genre where there plenty of innovation to be had.
Like I said, it will take some time.
 

Unknown?

Member
Maybe now, but Microsoft/Xbox is very LGBTQ, and gender equal company im sure they will make sure that this company doctrine will be implemented from the bottom to top at Acti-blizz.

As for pay and benefits Microsoft/Xbox offer some if not the best in the industry.

The other deciding factor will be what kinda of games they want to work on, warzone and COD is still the best competitive FPS on on the market. Its also a genre where there plenty of innovation to be had.
Being pro LGBTQ and gender equal doesn't attract talent nor does it mean you have diversity of thought on your team.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Being pro LGBTQ and gender equal doesn't attract talent nor does it mean you have diversity of thought on your team.

Most Talented or untalented people would not want to work n a company which is not supportive of gender equality and LGBTQ and I never said it means a team is diverse.
 

Unknown?

Member
Most Talented or untalented people would not want to work n a company which is not supportive of gender equality and LGBTQ and I never said it means a team is diverse.
Talented people want to work in a company that rewards talent not pandering to certain groups. Everyone being fairly treated and you don't get that with modern woke hiring.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Talented people want to work in a company that rewards talent not pandering to certain groups. Everyone being fairly treated and you don't get that with modern woke hiring.
Pandering?
Im clearly talking about having measures so people are not bullied or descriminated against in the workplace.

But I agree talented people to want to be rewarded, but this is Activision we are talking about, people were not complaining about there rewards/pay.
The complaints were about sexism and sexual harrasment.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Stop quota hiring women, that's a step in the right direction. "Diversifying" your company will just create a mess, seeing all the crap they're going through lately. No man wants to work in that environment.
Bro say sike right now
 

laynelane

Member
Pandering?
Im clearly talking about having measures so people are not bullied or descriminated against in the workplace.

But I agree talented people to want to be rewarded, but this is Activision we are talking about, people were not complaining about there rewards/pay.
The complaints were about sexism and sexual harrasment.

Many people at ActiBlizz were rewarded for success by losing their jobs. Along with the harassment, it most certainly has been a complaint. If the deal goes through, it would be great to see an end to practices like that.
 

bitbydeath

Member
Pandering?
Im clearly talking about having measures so people are not bullied or descriminated against in the workplace.

But I agree talented people to want to be rewarded, but this is Activision we are talking about, people were not complaining about there rewards/pay.
The complaints were about sexism and sexual harrasment.
Hiring activists/people with agendas, ie the woke, will always lead to trouble.
 
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