Employees at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Blizzard Entertainment have begun circulating a as of Friday, July 31, anonymously sharing information that their employer is likely desperate to keep a secret, and that is their salaries. While Bobby Kotick has been described as 🦹one of the most overpaid CEOs in the world, employees at the wildly successful company describe skipping meals to afford rent and putting off starting their own families due to financial restraints.
Bobby Kotick Is Among The Most Overpaid CEOs In The World
The subject of executive corporate compensation has long been a topic for debate. When a CEO does well, they tend to receive massive bonuses for having performed well. At the same time, when things are going badly, CEOs are often showered with cash to encourage them to do better and stick around.𝓡 No matter what, it seems that CEOs are always well paid.
Bobby Kot♚ick has certainly done a good job, but to CtW Investment Group, the CEO has received over $20 million in stock and option equity each year for the past four years, and “These equity grants have consistently been larger than the total pay (the sum of base salary, annual bonus, and equity pay) of CEO peers at similar companies."
However, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Activision responded by offering its full support of the compensation paid to Kotick, stating that the performance of the company more than justified such figures, “In the lasꩵt five years, Activision Blizzard's share price has outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 120% and over the past 20 years, under Mr. Kotick’s leadership, Activision Blizzard’s share price has outperformed the S&P 500 by over 11,000%.”
However, there isꦦ a significant disconnect here, because if the company is do🎀ing so well, why did Blizzard let 800 people go from their jobs in 2019 with no warning?
Massive Layoffs And No Warning
On July 12, 2019, Blizzard shocked everyone by around 800 staff with no warning. In its previous year, Kotick describe🐻d the work of the organization as excellent after having achieved record results with around $7.5 billion in revenue and $1.8 billion in profit, and his personal bonuses secured.
For weeks after, former employees took to social media to vent their shock and frustration at being treated like little more than an expendable resource by Blizzard. Anger became a common feeling expressed when Blizzard posted the same pos⛄itions it had terminated so recently. From a business perspective, it makes sense to hire someone new at an entry-level wage rather than keep paying someone who has earned additional compensation, but from a personal perspective, Blizzard acted in the most dehumanizing way possible.
The Spreadsheet
The revelati🀅on of a company-wide spreadsheet began in response to another controversy last week. As Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, in 2019 an internal survey brought to light that most employees at Blizzard found their compen꧑sation unsatisfactory. Blizzard, in its typical fashion, shifted into public relations mode and affirmed to its workers that a study would be done to ensure fair pair. However, once the results of the study were implemented, an outcry began collectively over the internal Slack messaging boards.
While Kotick received a compensation package in 2019 worth around $40 million, employees at Blizzard were still expressing the same feelings of being underpaid within the industry, and their stories are frustꦑrating to even read about given that Blizzard is such a successful developer. Following the layoff of 800 employees last year, most of the work was absorbed by remaining employees, but with no additional compensation, or very little🐬 in a few cases.
The lack of competitive compensation is not new, either. Bloomberg describes reviewing the internal communication channels from 2018, where employees described having trouble affording the basics in life and sharing the money-saving measures taken to continue working at Blizzard. One employee wrote that using coffee as an appetite suppressant allowed them to skip meals, while others described putting off starting their own families with their partners due to the cost. While this was happening, senior employees would post pictures of the vacations they could take with💫 their families.
No Choice But To Leave
While the spreadsheet represents current employees at Blizzard, former employees said that they could not remain with the organization and hope to make a competitive wage. As a result, they looked for work elsewhere, and only received significant increases to their compensation after taking similar positions at nearby developer 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Riot Games Inc. It seems t🎶hat꧙ for most workers, the only way to make more money is to leave Blizzard.
Overall, the news is shocking when considering the success of Blizzard over the years. For decades now the developer has pushed out success after success, and games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:World of Warcraft, Diablo, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hearthstone, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:StarCraft, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Candy Crush, and others have the potential to be among the most profitable in near perpetuity. There is clearly more than enough money to be mꦕade, but for the shareholders, it seems like there is no such thing as enough profit.
It Is Time To Unionize
An exce♎ssively overpaid CEO, below-average compensation, and the fear of sudden termination without cause are exactly the types of things that a worker’s union is meant to prevent. Blizzard has so many properties to continue exploiting for years to come, and the time has come to protect the people who make those games a reality.
Frida Kahlo, one of Mexico’s best-known artists, once said that, “there is so much wealth and so much misery at the same time, that it seems incredible that people can ensure su🐷ch class difference, and accept such a form of hunger while on the other hand, the millionaires throw away millions on stupidities.” The time has come for a change, not later, not soon, but right now.
Bobby Kotick is not spending his days creating the gaming experiences that so many have come to love, and he is not worth $40 million a year. The real work is being done by artists who drive new concepts, write outstanding dialogue, and create models. Next year, it would be great to hear 💫of a CEO being paid a reasonable wage, and of a union working to protect the people that bring Blizzard to🐷 life.
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