Blizzard Outlines Plans To Improve After ‘Challenging’ 2021

Image: Blizzard

Blizzard’s 2021 has been a year marked by low spots, with the company plagued by toxic workplace allegations and shaken by the departures (and layoffs) of several key personnel. Now, with a new year and likely a new owner as well, President Mike Ybarra outlined Blizzard’s plan to “rebuild your confidence.”

In a message posted on company website, says Ybarra, “2021 has been a challenge for all of us.” He continued: “As individuals, we care about treating everyone around us with respect and dignity. As professionals, we care deeply about our jobs and want to work in the most supportive and safe environment possible. Our top priority, now and in the future, is the work we do to rebuild your trust in Blizzard.

“I was also encouraged to read forums, social media posts, and emails from people inside and outside of Blizzard, to stand up for what is right, and to give us your advice.” , he adds. “I want you all to know that we are listening and committed to change.”

To that effect, he says Blizzard is implementing a number of new policies and personnel changes, including bringing executive compensation closer to “improving the culture” and instituting an “upward feedback program.” so workers can “have confidence in management’s assessment.”

We measure our leadership and management teams directly against culture improvement. This means that their success and compensation (and mine) will directly depend on our overall success in creating a safe, inclusive, and creative work environment at Blizzard. We are devoting more full-time roles and resources to improving our culture. Too often, this important effort falls to employee resource groups, made up of people who are already in full-time jobs. Here are some of the leadership positions we’ve created for this new team: a culture manager who will help us retain the best aspects of what we have today, and change and evolve as needed to ensure that everyone brings their best to Blizzard, a new organizational human resources leader who will build trust, empower our teams and help foster a safe and positive work environment for all, a diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) uniquely focused on our progress across multiple efforts in this area. We are committed to staffing these teams as a priority. We tripled the size of our compliance and investigation teams and defined clear accountability for unacceptable behavior. This applies to all Blizzard employees, including management and management. We shared representation data internally with our teams and set targets for improving these metrics. We have implemented an upward feedback program so that employees have confidence in management’s assessment. , and we will use it to measure the quality and effectiveness of our managers.

Beyond Blizzard’s workplace issues, Ybarra also says, “We know we need to deliver content to our players on a more regular basis and innovate both within and beyond our existing games. We have exciting things to announce, and I’ll tell you more next week.

These are certainly steps forward, but they will also be meaningless unless they translate into tangible improvements in the workplace itself, which we (and employees) will have to judge in due course. . It is also important to note that for all the changes described above, none of them include requests made by ABK Workers’ Alliance for things like pay transparency or, more importantly, independent audits (all of Ybarra’s points above relate to internal solutions).

And who knows what Microsoft’s purchase will do to those plans and positions, once the new ownership takes effect..