Employee Demands Are Not Being Satisfied, Improvement in Some Areas or Not
Ubisoft has had some things on its plate lately. They’ve decided to add NFTs to their games. They’ve lost Dan Hay in November, one of the people behind the Far Cry series. And, most controversial, they’ve had some problems when it came to their workplace environment, to the point of employees asking the public for help. Thankfully, this does not seem as bad as the Activision Blizzard situation as of late. But it’s not that great either.
Ubisoft management does believe they’re making strides though, despite the hardship. They’ve already ensured there were pay raises in the main office. And in an interview with Axios, Ubisoft’s chief people officer, Anika Grant, spoke of the situation and what they were doing to improve their workplace. According to Grant, due to the lack of transparency on how the investigations were going, “people lost trust” due to noncommunication. And because of this, Grant is committed to having a better follow-through when it comes to investigations saying: “That’s something right now we are 100% focused on fixing.”
That’s very good to hear, especially when hearing Ubisoft has surpassed its goal of hiring 24% more women with 32% in the past year. But, that’s all it is, it seems- good to hear. Later in the interview, Grant refuses to comment on the accusation of shuffling managers known for abuse or workplace harassment within the company. Moreover, Grant contradicts herself in saying that while team members can speak publicly about their workplace experiences, people involved in investigations are asked to keep things quiet “to protect the integrity of the process and the rights of all those involved.”
“I recognize it’s a long journey,” Grant said. “I know we are not yet where we want to be. But I do think that we are seeing incremental improvements every day.”
It’s difficult to say if this is smoothing over PR, or if this is the truth. ABetterUbisoft has released a statement about the interview, and they’re clearly not happy about it, saying “Ubisoft’s top management has very clearly communicated through its actions that they’re adamant on keeping full control over decisions concerning safety policy and reports, and about running the new processes as a black box.”
This black box nature is breeding grounds for abuse. The single points of failure spread across the processes makes them prone to failure and ineffectiveness. We will keep our demands until they are met.
— ABetterUbisoft (@ABetterUbisoft) December 6, 2021
Workers with ABetterUbisoft promise to stick to their guns and their same demands, which boils down to having a say within Ubisoft. But it seems, for now, Ubisoft management find that a difficult ask.