
What the Hell Happened at Activision Blizzard? - adrian_mrd
https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/16/18226581/activision-blizzard-layoffs-executive-pay-unions
======
wutbrodo
This is a well-written article, much more even-handed than the usual garbage
takes that touch on the tension between the different factors in the employer-
employee relationship. I feel like the author couldn't make up his mind
though:

> Kotick could have cut his own salary (a small piece of his overall
> compensation package) or waved off some of the stock incentives he earned,
> but it would have been performative. It wouldn’t have saved jobs. The
> gesture would have been symbolic, as 800 people likely still would have
> found themselves out of work.

And

> All of this amounts to more people on hand than work to give them.
> Activision Blizzard has been building staff for years. The company suddenly
> finds itself without the product to back up that need

vs

> It’s nigh impossible to rationalize or justify 800 people being shown the
> door as a company reports record sales.

And

> executive pay is broken and now hundreds of people are out of work.

He makes the case that the layoffs were due to not having any work for those
employees, not a financial resources squeeze, but then falls back onto
seemingly-contradictory platitudes when he needs to sum up the article.

As he says, activison is bad at planning, but the decisions that led to the
labor/tasks mismatch were made earlier. Obviously they should do better there
(particularly as he claims they have a pattern of doing this), but what should
they have done differently in this case?

This is actually a serious question, and one I'm open-minded about: people
like to imply things about labor markers without seeing them through. Are
there proponents of paying people to not work, keeping them on your books like
zombie employees until your headcount needs catch up over several years? Is
this an arrangement that an employee would even want, given how his skills
would atrophy in the meanwhile? (Bear in mind that I'm taking for granted, as
the author does, the idea that Activison doesn't have the ability to just
conjure up productive work/projects based solely on having extra headcount).

None of this is rhetorical, as I'm actually genuinely curious what people
think about this.

~~~
ergothus
> None of this is rhetorical, as I'm actually genuinely curious what people
> think about this.

I have no background knowledge that gives my opinion any weight, but like you
I generally appreciated the article for being more practical, but then was
disappointed when it suddenly stopped.

Big questions for me are: how long has this looming reduction been obvious (to
the people at the executive level)? Why isn't this sort of an action
considered a failure of the execs?

Surely this puts a dent in your ability to hire effectively. When you hire an
employee and not a contractor, you are stating (imnsho) your expectation to
have available work for the foreseeable future. Have these positions been
hiring until they suddenly werent? For how long has the plan been ("...and
when we are in between big releases, we lay a bunch of people off")?

These disgustingly well paid executives are the ones that are supposed to he
able to manage these questions. That they haven't and are considered
successful feels wrong.

One thing I think the article misses - unions may not have directly helped,
but what would? If companies legit dont care about their reputations add an
employer for certain fields, that tells me those fields have an imbalance at
the employee supply/demand level at a minimum. Let's figure out why, and see
if we can improve that.

~~~
wutbrodo
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think you, I and the author are all in
agreement that a pattern of such misestimation is a problem, and that a full-
time hire is a good-faith claim at the stability of the job for at least some
time. Your point that assessment of executive performance should include
employee welfare and thus this misestimation is also well-taken.

But the question that really interests me is: conditioned on having made that
mistake, what course of action should Activision have taken wrt these
employees? Executive pay could be lowered for fucking this up, but given that
it wasn't driven by a resource squeeze, the employment status of these
employees wouldn't be affected.

~~~
ergothus
An interesting question. Once a mistake is made, what response do we hope for?
Truthfully, once enough mistakes have been made, you can't have people happy,
you can only have less UNhappy.

Speaking off the top of my head (The question really does deserve more
thought):

* Announce what steps have been taken to not have this happen again. Show some sign of actual regret that this happened.

* Don't spring it on people. Normally there's a progression before layoffs: hiring freeze to allow headcount to reduce over time, rumors and acknowledgements that allow headcount to further reduce, informed end-dates and severance packages. While rumors have been swirling, this is WAY too many people for this to be the surprise it seems to have been.

* Be careful with contractors. Contractors didn't get any severance. On the one hand, positions of temporary duration practically BEG to be contracts. On the other hand, contracts should (according to my personal and subjective moral outrage) have defined durations and be renegotiated in advance, not end as a sudden surprise if you've fulfilled your part. If you know these are temporary positions, contract appropriately.

And, if you've screwed up ENOUGH - yeah, pay people to make up the difference.
Don't pay them to do nothing, but these are all professionals of varied
skills. Use that. "Hey everyone, we're going to reduce headcount because we
don't have enough active work to justify your positions. But we had a record
year, so you all have a job for another month, and your tasks in that time are
to add value for the company. Build a guide for newcomers, put together a
marketing proposal, write a tool for internal use, whatever - you know what
the company needs, and now you have a chance to do it."

Anything here would be an improvement over what we've seen.

