Ubisoft Admits What We All Suspected About Workplace Misconduct
In the wake of the ongoing lawsuits against Activision Blizzard regarding sexual harassment and discrimination, the video game industry as a whole has gone under the microscope in terms of misconduct in the workplace. Several companies such as Microsoft and Sony have voiced opposition to Activision Blizzard — and CEO Bobby Kotick specifically — and have taken stances against workplace misconduct as a whole. Outside of Activision, Ubisoft is another company that has been accused of having a less than stellar record of maintaining a safe working environment. Now, Ubisoft is back in the spotlight as the conversation about workplace culture continues.
The French company originally faced accusations of toxicity in the workplace back in the summer of 2020, a situation that has apparently not gotten better since then. Despite replacing former HR Director Cécile Cornet with Chief People Officer Anika Grant in the past year, reports stated that many of Ubisoft's employees that covered for others accused of misconduct were still with the company. With pressure from the outside heating up, Grant has had to admit what everyone has suspected this whole time.
The company has not had an adequate response to toxicity in the workplace
After the company received criticism from ABetterUbisoft — a collection of current and former Ubisoft employees — that the company had done little to meet the demands of the workers, CPO Anika Grant offered comment on the situation, saying that Ubisoft had "spent a lot of time" attempting to create a viable system in which internal investigations against workplace complaints could be initiated. Unfortunately, according to Grant in an interview with Axios, the system has been imperfect to this point due to a lack of communication and has caused distrust between the ranks.
"What I think we missed though is the employee experience through that," Grant said. "I don't think we always communicated enough back to the people who had raised an issue in the first place about what we found as part of the investigations — the decisions that we made and the actions that we took. And so I think unfortunately people lost trust in that process."
In response to Grant's Axios interview, ABetterUbisoft called for "employees of all ranks [having] a seat at the table in these processes for them to be effective and fair." The workers' alliance declared that despite Grant's admittance of Ubisoft's mishandling of the situation, they would not back down until their initial demands have been met.