Ubisoft employee group criticizes publisher on internal survey
A Better Ubisoft says company recognized a desire for more transparency in a numbers-light, video-only presentation
A group of present and former Ubisoft employees are taking the publisher to task over a lack of transparency in its latest employee satisfaction survey.
A Better Ubisoft posted a statement on its Twitter account Monday saying the results of the survey were communicated to employees solely through an internal video in which Ubisoft chief people officer Anika Grant summarized the results with six takeaways, three positive and three negative.
"With the exception of participation and engagement scores, the talking points were delivered with no numbers," the group said. "Instead, there were vague statements like, 'You told us...' or 'We heard from you..' This gives no way of knowing whether the statement that 'you have managers who are approachable and supportive' means 95% feel this way or 51% -- starkly different outcomes."
The group said the video also stressed that some of the positive responses were "above the external benchmarks for general industry" but neglected to share those benchmarks or what they represented.
One thing Grant was said to emphasize in the video was that two of the biggest areas of concern for employees were transparency and accountability.
We asked A Better Ubisoft if they had requested the full survey results from the publisher, they responded that internal message board threads calling for transparency and accountability have been largely ignored by management, even in posts where the company was explicitly asking for feedback.
"When a carefully rehearsed, highly polished presentation is released on a Friday afternoon with no [Ubisoft internal social media] Mana post, management are telling us very clearly that we're getting no further information," the group said.
"Faced with internal silence, the only option we have is to ask our questions and raise our concerns in public, where *at the very least* we know they're seen"
We asked Ubisoft on Monday if it would release the full results of the survey, or commit to sharing them with employees who requested it. As of this writing, the company has not responded to that inquiry.