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[Bloomberg] Blizzard Manager Departs In Protest of Employee Ranking System (UPDATE: Manager responds)

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Fieran

Fieran

Member
Oct 29, 2017
182
Edinburgh, Scotland
Its that time again, blizzard stoking controversy. Having to rate an employee lower than they deserve because of some stupid quota is horrendous.


View: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1617647012903784463

Long and short of it seems to be that blizzard forces a quota-based ratings system since 2021. 5% of the staff must be given a "Developing" rating, which is on the lower end and means they get less of a bonus or chances to advance.

(first thread, lock if old/mistakes where made)

UPDATE: Brian responds


View: https://twitter.com/BrianBirming/status/1617688536983175168
 
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mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,401
I really hate that whole "exceeds expectations" "meets" "developing" crap of putting everyone in boxes because a quota needs to be met. In one company the CEO made a big deal of "I'm not telling anyone that they have quotas" conveniently leaving out that every department had a quota so that means quotas were pushed all the way down. They wouldn't let you have a team of all "exceeds" because that would mean some other team would have all "developing" and at times it became who can politic the best for their employees. Stack ranking sucks.
 
Soj

Soj

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,775
Good for them.

Shouldn't have to put up with that shit, let alone be the one unwillingly enforcing it.
 
Twister

Twister

Member
Feb 11, 2019
5,127
mrmoose said:
I really hate that whole "exceeds expectations" "meets" "developing" crap of putting everyone in boxes because a quota needs to be met. In one company the CEO made a big deal of "I'm not telling anyone that they have quotas" conveniently leaving out that every department had a quota so that means quotas were pushed all the way down. They wouldn't let you have a team of all "exceeds" because that would mean some other team would have all "developing" and at times it became who can politic the best for their employees. Stack ranking sucks.
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My company has these categories but from what I was told anyways, I don't think there are quotas. Is that a common thing? I was told that literally nobody gets developing unless they've already been talked to multiple times about not meeting expectations and my boss said they've never seen anyone get that before so I would assume there aren't quotas for it
 
T0kenAussie

T0kenAussie

Member
Jan 15, 2020
5,174
Ladder ranking is a nepotism fueler

No idea why a company would still keep them around especially with all the noise about ABKs horrible policies and exploitation that has happened in Blizzard specifically
 
Hasney

Hasney

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
19,097
We had that shit at work... it lasted a year because its an absolute joke.
 
Malverde

Malverde

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,636
Unceded Tongva and Acjachemen land
mrmoose said:
I really hate that whole "exceeds expectations" "meets" "developing" crap of putting everyone in boxes because a quota needs to be met. In one company the CEO made a big deal of "I'm not telling anyone that they have quotas" conveniently leaving out that every department had a quota so that means quotas were pushed all the way down. They wouldn't let you have a team of all "exceeds" because that would mean some other team would have all "developing" and at times it became who can politic the best for their employees. Stack ranking sucks.
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Yup. Finally did away with them this year at my workplace. Also "exceeds expectations" is some toxic shit and tying it to pay leads to exploitation.
 
Corsick

Corsick

Member
Oct 27, 2017
977
The system destroys another 1st line manager with a shred of integrity (who is actually on the ground level and SEES how their employees are performing). Good job, Blizzard. Your leadership is continuing to hollow out the company.
 
BobLoblaw

BobLoblaw

This Guy Helps
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,360
We're doing employee reviews right now and we've been encouraged to do something similar. I said fuck that and did what I wanted. My boss asked me why my team's scores were so high and I just told her I've got a good team. I'm not going to arbitrarily say someone's doing worse than they are just to meet some quota, especially if bonuses or annual pay are tied to it.
 
Tbm24

Tbm24

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,734
My last employer similar. Was talking to a friend who was a manager of 6 people there and was given a bonus allotment for that team that could never be split amongst them reasonably along with the ranking to force it.

Now that I think about it, I don't remember what my department specifically did as I wasn't privvy to it, but I remember from a 10% bonus, I was only given 6% while the extra 4% was given to another who "exceeded expectations" for lack of the exact term my old company used. Wow I forgot all about that until now.
 
TheLastYoshi

TheLastYoshi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
879
Stack ranking works, I'm in support of it as long as it doesn't lead to lower end being fired. If everyone is special nobody is. I have a team of 10, and the highest top performers should get a bigger bonus than the bottom performers.
 
Axe

Axe

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,801
United Kingdom
They adopted stack ranking in 2021? Wtf

If the Microsoft acquisition goes through, I wonder if they would scrap it? That company learned the hard way how toxic stack ranking can be.
 
canderous

canderous

Prophet of Truth
Member
Jun 12, 2020
8,830
Damn. This guy was pretty public facing in the WoW community too. Remember seeing him on a lot of WoW classic interviews. Good for him for standing up to it.

He's been at Blizzard since at least 2007 as he has an original Burning Crusade credit.
 
Captain of Outer Space

Captain of Outer Space

Come Sale Away With Me
Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,544
Employee reviews that involve never giving out high scores because "everybody can be better" are just fucked up ways to make people feel like shit when they're a great worker.
 
Katbobo

Katbobo

Member
May 3, 2022
5,511
Axe said:
They adopted stack ranking in 2021? Wtf

If the Microsoft acquisition goes through, I wonder if they would scrap it? That company learned the hard way how toxic stack ranking can be.
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I was gonna say, isn't this one of the origins of that old MS culture where every team was hostile towards each other for the sake of self-preservation? Drag others down to make it less likely you're the ones who get ranked on the low end.

I can't imagine why any company would be using it in 2023. It sounds horrible for a studio's culture, which is the last thing Blizzard needs.
 
Surakian

Surakian

Shinra Employee
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
11,056
TheLastYoshi said:
Stack ranking works, I'm in support of it as long as it doesn't lead to lower end being fired. If everyone is special nobody is. I have a team of 10, and the highest top performers should get a bigger bonus than the bottom performers.
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Not everywhere, and not with every team structure or industry. It works in sales, but in a collaborative workplace like game development, it feels scummy given the sort of culture often promoted in these places that incentivize people to work insane hours.

Has management taken the time to see why the lowest performers are performing that way? Given them training and opportunities to improve their work quality? Offered them assistance if it is due to outside factors? Divided the work evenly among coworkers to ensure workers are doing their fair share?
 
UnluckyKate

UnluckyKate

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,634
I've had to grade student with this system, its the fucking worst. In a amazing class, you get 95% of A+ students but the quota needs you to gives equals As, Bs and Cs... the worst thing is that most companies will ask for uni grades. It fucking sucks and you get student asking, bargaining (rightfully) for grades, giving you gifts and darker shit. Its awful... And twisted for company management sounds even worst
 
thediamondage

thediamondage

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,595
For bigger companies these kind of systems encourage the exact opposite of what you want - employees cozy up to managers, favoritism (or worse) develops, and you end up with the worst employees staying as it becomes a Game of Thrones like competition and ranks become about everything BUT actual performance.
 
Tbm24

Tbm24

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,734
UnluckyKate said:
I've had to grade student with this system, its the fucking worst. In a amazing class, you get 95% of A+ students but the quota needs you to gives equals As, Bs and Cs... the worst thing is that most companies will ask for uni grades. It fucking sucks and you get student asking, bargaining (rightfully) for grades, giving you gifts and darker shit. Its awful... And twisted for company management sounds even worst
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I'm not sure I understand, stack ranking for students? What's the justification for that?
 
UnluckyKate

UnluckyKate

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,634
Tbm24 said:
I'm not sure I understand, stack ranking for students? What's the justification for that?
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They said its more fair that way, so all university have equal share of grades, no manipulations or grades for better prestige...
But its really not, imagine you are getting in top 1% uni but fall 1% behind in grades in a class : you end up being in B or C brackets for your grades. And now you have to study harder to not fail a semester because suddenly, you are not graded compared to an accademic standard but how you fit in your class.

It opened MANY cases of student bargaining for better grades, re-reviews of a test (that is a fair thing to ask), but a whole lot of friendly-buddying the teachers, sometimes gifts, sometimes even flirting or straight up sexual advances for a grade and even false rape accusation when denied.
 
TheLastYoshi

TheLastYoshi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
879
Surakian said:
Not everywhere, and not with every team structure or industry. It works in sales, but in a collaborative workplace like game development, it feels scummy given the sort of culture often promoted in these places that incentivize people to work insane hours.

Has management taken the time to see why the lowest performers are performing that way? Given them training and opportunities to improve their work quality? Offered them assistance if it is due to outside factors? Divided the work evenly among coworkers to ensure workers are doing their fair share?
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Agreed that it doesn't apply to every structure or industry but I've worked in tech. for over a decade, from product dev. to ui/ux and operations, it is very difficult to 'divide work evenly' and even harder to not see daylight between high performers and low performers.

Offering 'low performers' assistance is one thing but to me that still ranks lower than an employee on the same team who was able to excel independently, without assistance.
 
Cort

Cort

Member
Nov 4, 2017
4,372
For once this is much less a Blizzard issue and more of a capitalism issue, because it's something that every major company practices in order to avoid paying their employees a higher wage.
 
Jakartalado

Jakartalado

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,311
São Paulo, Brazil
Every company does this here in Brazil.

Also known as forced curve, where you "need" some collaborators to be on the "Action required" or "Missed Expectations" ranking

Pure gibberish. Just capitalism non-sense to reach levels of ROI for Investors
 
SuperBanana

SuperBanana

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,778
I just don't understand why businesses use these absolute dog shit methods of management. It's insane and they lose so much talent.
 
Iztok

Iztok

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,193
The first time I've felt sad about my job is when they introduced a way to put me and my coworkers into different classes.
We've always viewed each others as equals before.

I feel for people at Blizzard.
 
psionotic

psionotic

Member
May 29, 2019
2,099
UnluckyKate said:
I've had to grade student with this system, its the fucking worst. In a amazing class, you get 95% of A+ students but the quota needs you to gives equals As, Bs and Cs... the worst thing is that most companies will ask for uni grades. It fucking sucks and you get student asking, bargaining (rightfully) for grades, giving you gifts and darker shit. Its awful... And twisted for company management sounds even worst
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I was in a similar situation. No quota, but my first department regularly sent out a list of what the average grade was in each of your courses, along with pointed comments about how important it was to stop grade inflation. The result was that certain optional/advanced classes, like Writing 123, had no one that wanted to teach them because only strong/A students would take them, and so the teacher would have to artificially deflate people's grades or else suffer the 'you're not applying the standards!' email from the department. Incredibly demoralizing and also self-defeating.
 
Baru

Baru

Member
Oct 27, 2017
42
TheLastYoshi said:
Stack ranking works, I'm in support of it as long as it doesn't lead to lower end being fired. If everyone is special nobody is. I have a team of 10, and the highest top performers should get a bigger bonus than the bottom performers.
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I completely disagree. Stack ranking looks purely at how a set of employees compare to each other. This has almost no meaning in reality. Instead you should be looking at how each employee compares to their job level and ensure that calibration is done against other employees with similar job profiles at the same job level. This way you may have a team with a (arbitrarily picking a level scale) level 8 IC who is executing as you would expect at a level 8 but not yet pushing into a level 9, and a level 4 killing it at that level and pushing to level 5. The L8 is likely still far more productive than the L4, and at that higher level should be getting more bonus than the lower level employee, but they aren't (and shouldn't be) compared directly to each other just because they have the same manager.
 
Zem

Zem

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,993
United Kingdom
This guy in particular was doing a really good job with WOTLK Classic as well, probably the bright spot in WoW right now. Losing him is very likely to hurt the game, maybe not right now but certainly when they move past wotlk, as he made some good changes there.
 
Mr. RPG

Mr. RPG

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,059
Zem said:
This guy in particular was doing a really good job with WOTLK Classic as well, probably the bright spot in WoW right now.
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With Brian gone, RDF is definitely coming to Classic now. I would not be surprised if it ends up appearing in the next Season of Mastery as well.
 
tokkun

tokkun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,456
Fieran said:
Long and short of it seems to be that blizzard forces a quota-based ratings system since 2021. 5% of the staff must be given a "Developing" rating, which is on the lower end and means they get less of a bonus or chances to advance.
Click to expand...
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They will fit in well at Microsoft.

Axe said:
They adopted stack ranking in 2021? Wtf

If the Microsoft acquisition goes through, I wonder if they would scrap it? That company learned the hard way how toxic stack ranking can be.
Click to expand...
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Tech companies like to claim they don't do stack ranking anymore because the name got a bad rap. All they mean is that they no longer produce a list that ranks every employee on an individual level.

Everybody is still getting ranked to some extent. It's just that for the people squarely in the middle of a given performance rating, there is no point in producing an absolute ordering. But that still gets done for people on the high or low end of the rating.
 
Surakian

Surakian

Shinra Employee
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
11,056
TheLastYoshi said:
Agreed that it doesn't apply to every structure or industry but I've worked in tech. for over a decade, from product dev. to ui/ux and operations, it is very difficult to 'divide work evenly' and even harder to not see daylight between high performers and low performers.

Offering 'low performers' assistance is one thing but to me that still ranks lower than an employee on the same team who was able to excel independently, without assistance.
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But everybody works differently. You can't expect every employee to excel independently, and you have to take into consideration what level of skill an employee is at or how long they have been in that position. And if employees are doing different work, how are you comparing their ability to perform if the tasks and duties are different?
 
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