The word on the street is that Activision Blizzard is struggling to retain old staff members and recruit new workers. The staff struggle comes after recent litigation and media attention relating to misconduct, and according to their annual report, the publisher’s attraction has been dwindling.
The publishers of the famed Call of Duty franchise have said that if they cannot attract skilled and qualified talent or even retain their current key staff, the future of the business will be gravely affected. Activision Blizzard’s struggles for staff have been on the horizon, though the looming threat has become a real problem.
What are the details of Activision Blizzard’s struggles?
It has become a significant talking point in recent times that the company has had an overwhelming outpour of harassment allegations and legal cases in their toxic workplace. This misconduct has severely affected Activision Blizzard’s struggles with staff retention – masters of their own downfall, it seems.
A spokesperson from the company said, “We have observed labor shortages, increasing competition for talent, and increasing attrition. We are experiencing major difficulty in attracting and retaining any skilled workers”. They went on to say, “We observed a significantly higher turnover rate of our human resources department last year. The recent litigation involving our company and the workplace behavior has had an adverse effect on our ability to hire and retain staff”. What did they really think would happen, though? That these allegations would be a positive thing?
Despite Activision Blizzard’s struggles for staff, they have reported employee figures to be around 9,800 as of the end of last year, which is an increase of 300 workers compared to the previous year. As we all know, Activision Blizzard is being bought out by Microsoft in that huge $68.7 billion deal, but even with this takeover, they continue to come under fire for their cultural and workplace issues. There are even talks of unionization for current staff as a means of protection, so let’s see how that one works out soon.