Activision Blizzard is ending its hybrid work policy for its quality assurance teams, requiring in-office work for QA employees in El Segundo, Austin, and Minneapolis. The ABK Workers Alliance has pushed back against this mandate, calling the move a "soft layoff."
The new mandate will require QA members in the affected cities to return to the office full-time, effectively ending the hybrid work schedule Activision Blizzard, like many companies, has adopted since the Pandemic. The QA staff was made aware of the decision back on November 30th, with the new mandate taking effect in January, according to a post by the ABK Workers Alliance.
In a post to social media, the union released a statement pushing back against the new mandate for QA members, saying that a "one-size-fits-all mandate harms" everyone at ABK.
On November 30th, Activision QA employees in Minneapolis, Austin, and El Segundo received an email announcing that hybrid work will be ended in January for QA employees. Below is our statement regarding this decision. pic.twitter.com/UKyRH2BggH
— ABetterABK ?? ABK Workers Alliance (@ABetterABK) December 18, 2023
"The job security of many QA employees was already on shaky ground due to the announcement of hybrid work earlier this year," the ABK Workers Alliance said in its statement. It continues, "Since then, hundreds of employees have been in correspondence with the Accommodations team to try to receive permanent work from home arrangements due to disability, financial issues, or other factors. Many of these requests have been outright denice and many more have been offered in-office accommodations that do not adequately meet the needs of employees."
As a result of the earlier move, and indeed even the new mandate, the ABK union says that many employees have been "forced out of the company in a soft layoff." For their part, Activision Blizzard is offering severance pay for anyone who chooses to leave the company due to the mandate. According to an email viewed by IGN, the severance would include "12 weeks of pay, 2023 bonus, 12 months of healthcare, and unused vacation time."
In a statement to IGN, Activision Blizzard acknowledged the mandate and offered its reasons for insisting on its implementation, saying that workers were more productive while in person due to a variety of factors.
"After returning to the office in April, we’ve learned a lot about how our teams can work best. In particular, we saw our QA team in Minneapolis, Austin and El Segundo work more effectively and efficiently in person, thanks to improved broadband speeds, seamless team coordination, and better hardware access. As a result, we’ve made the decision to move from a hybrid work schedule to a full-time, in-office working model for Activision QA in Minneapolis, Austin and El Segundo to foster a best-in-class QA function and best deliver for our players."
After the deal to acquire Activision Blizzard went through for Microsoft, the tech giant reaffirmed its stance of labor neutrality with the Communications Workers of America. The ABK Workers Alliance was created in 2021 in the wake of the sexual harassment and labor issues lawsuit that Activision Blizzard found itself embroiled in over the course of the last few years, with that lawsuit only recently being settled in court, with the sexual harassment suit dropped in the settlement (Activision denies the allegations as well in its settlement statement). Raven Software, one of the many companies under the Activision Blizzard umbrella, saw its QA workers unionize as the Game Workers Alliance, forming the video game industry's first union in the United States.
