Activision Blizzard Reportedly At Risk Of Losing A Lot Of Staff As They Try To Force Them Back To The Office
The company plans to begin the process in April.
Once again, Activision Blizzard is reportedly making moves that we’re sure they feel benefit the bottom line somewhere but don’t take their employees into account. According to reports on Twitter and Reddit from individuals whose accounts indicate they’re ABK staff.
Today, this information was confirmed by an Activision Blizzard spokesperson who spoke with Video Games Chronicle. According to the statement, “Activision Blizzard has been returning teams to the office over the past year, and on February 13, [they’ve] updated [their] future-of-work plans.” The statement goes on to say that they’ve worked with leadership teams to customize plans.
One fairly lengthy series of tweets from @LeastMyHairIsOk reports that the company has plans to force employees to return to the office beginning anywhere between April and June, depending on the studio.
Throughout the thread, the tweets discuss all the reasons why this is a terrible idea and harmful to employees. One of the big points made is that the ability to work from home has allowed employees to compensate for the fact that despite them making requests for cost of living increases for about a decade, ABK just hasn’t accommodated that. By working from home, they’re able to save on several living expenses, from decreased housing costs to driving-related expenses to child care.
Aside from that, working from home allows employees to avoid being in an environment more likely to force them into contact with COVID. And, it allows employees that might otherwise have difficulty in the office due to non-COVID-related disabilities to continue to do their jobs.
With all these factors under consideration, it’s not shocking that the thread also indicates that this move will likely cause a lot of employees to quit the company. Of course, the fact that reports show ABK’s pay rate is significantly lower than other competitors in the same area – competitors who do allow work from home, isn’t doing the company any favor with employees.
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QuintLyn is a long-time lover of all things video game related will happily talk about them to anyone that will listen. She began writing about games for various gaming sites a little over ten years ago and has taken on various roles in the games community.
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I am facing a similar situation working for the state of PA. They want to force all work from home staff back as well, saying it "increases collaboration, teamwork, and productivity". No it doesn't. As IT staff who work on cloud related and virtual datacenters, whether I sit in my home office or a cubicle farm, there is no contact with physical servers or a need to. So there is no need to work in the office, other than the Govenor recently forced high level management staff back. So we unionized lowbies think its a petty issue of "If I have to come back, everyone will".
You watch. Several hundred of us threatened to go to the union and quit if they try and force us back in.